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25 reasons why teachers are modern-day slaves

1) The school administration is always competing for prestige in academic activities. This breeds unhealthy behaviour as in a school in Alor Star, where substitute pupils sat for the UPSR. School administrations disregard the mental stress on the teachers to compete.

2) The administration also casually volunteers at district education department meetings to host regional events but all the heavy work falls upon the already overworked teachers. This is done to achieve glamour for the administration and enhance their personal promotion prospects.

3) The administration holds long weekly staff meetings after hours up to 4pm, disseminating information that could be distributed by circulars and posted notices. Ad-hoc meetings are often called. This indicates poor management skills by fast promoted staff.

4) Staff meetings are a top-down monologue, with threats of exposing perceived troublemakers and blacklisting anyone who dares to offer suggestions. Decisions are made without any feedback from the teachers.

The administration is aware of intense controversy and chaos but does not realise that this is evidence of its own leadership failure, which will result in passive non-cooperation and poor work output. The irony here is that some school administration staff have a major in psychology.

5) The administration requires each subject and special duties chief teacher to categorise all documents into 20 separate numbered files for each subject plus sub-headings. Other government departments only provide up to three files and filing is done by clerks.

6) The administration has also instructed that certain student and lesson plan information for the record book must be handwritten, although it is repeated monthly. Teachers are not allowed to paste printed repeat information in the book.

7) The administration forces teachers to prepare a working paper with rigidly set format and computer font type for every school activity, including trivial issues. They vet all working papers, record books and meeting minutes simply to find fault with the poor teachers.

They have no sense of compassion or understanding for the tremendous effort put in. Teachers also have to wait hours to see the school administration as they give low priority to teachers and entertain outside visitors and their friends first.

8) The administration wastes teachers’ time by organising frequent academic launching events. A lot of money is spent on functions, fish ponds, projects (up to RM25,000 each), banners (specified format), printing programmes, etc - all to impress district education department guests.

The administration is only concerned about rituals while the toilets are in an atrocious state. In addition, a souvenir printed using school funds is presented, even to the school administration. This is a questionable practice that contravenes government circulars.

9) In some cases, the school administration unfairly forces the teachers to contribute money for the water and electricity bills. There have even been cases where teachers fed up with the school administration have scratched the latter’s cars, which indicates the level of despair in schools.

10) Teachers have to set numerous tests with rigid format involving up to10 pages of typing. They must also share the school’s few outdated computers whereas government departments have numerous typists and many officers are given personal computers with Internet access.

In addition, they have to compile and staple about 300 copies of test papers and quizzes monthly. It is common for teachers to get their husbands, children and maids to assist in typing, sorting, compiling and marking, working often until late at night.

11) Teachers are burdened with numerous administrative duties, including running school clubs. There is a club for practically everything under the sun involving preparation of minutes, collection of fees and organisation of frequent activities.

12) Teachers workload is always increased based on the whims and fancies of education department officers, who frequently come up with wild ideas to be implemented without any impact assessment. These include new clubs, resource and file systems, new subjects and academic events.

13) Teachers are forced to give tuition from February to December for all future and current year examination candidates. They are required to stay back for two hours weekly for this purpose. But most students go for private tuition and will be exhausted with homework from three sources.

The Parent-Teacher Associations even have the gall to request school tuition for non-examination classes, treating the school as a tuition centre, abdicating their parental duties, and shifting the baby-sitting responsibility of their uncontrollable children to the poor teachers.

14) The teachers are under tremendous mental torture and stress and a few are undergoing psychological treatment. This is also due to rejection of their application for school transfers nearer to their homes to avoid the strenuous daily commuting.

15) Sports practice is compulsory every week even if it is raining, when the students are forced to run around the corridors, which I consider a ridiculous and dangerous order due to an overzealous school administration.

16) Teachers are burdened with schoolwork including marking test papers, quizzes and books. Many teachers are still in school up to 6pm daily, affecting their own family life, whereas the school administration merrily leaves at 4pm.

The teachers’ young children may turn to undesirable activities due to lack of parental supervision, which is contrary to the government’s promotion of family values. This will also affect relations with their husbands as they may tend to argue due to emotional stress.

17) Teachers are burdened with up to 29 periods out of 40 per week; in addition, they have to do daily relief periods which eats into whatever little free time they have. Many teachers hardly have time to eat as afternoon tuition starts 15 minutes after school ends. Most schools have a shortage of teachers.

18) The teachers job is very demanding physically as they must often climb three floors carrying up to 30kg of books. They must also walk to and fro between distant blocks. This physical stress is especially dangerous for the many pregnant teachers and may be the cause of miscarriages.

The administration gives instructions easily from their air-conditioned offices while the staff room only has fans. It is unfair that other government departments are air-conditioned even for office boys while teachers must bear the heat. Teachers are also cooped up in Spartan-like staff rooms.

19) Teachers must fill numerous time-consuming forms required by the administration. This involves distribution and collection of forms as well as collection of data and money from uncooperative students. All data has to be sorted, input and analysed repeatedly.

20) Teachers are also required to call up parents of delinquent students and send letters to them. They also have to transport sick students to the hospital and wait with them, without compensation of transport and parking costs involved.

21) Teachers are frequently required to use their car to ferry students to various outside activities; the issue of insurance coverage is not clear in case of accidents or injury.

22) Teachers are not provided with any stationery for their work in contrast with other government servants. They are not allowed to use the photostat machine even for teaching work and submission of official forms, contrary to the practice in other government departments.

23) Teachers have to control and teach 45 disturbed students in each class for seven hours daily, which is a Herculean task. Parents should sympathise with this as they are not even able to control, let alone teach, their own children for a few hours during the school holidays.

24) Teachers are not allowed to leave the school premises even briefly except for critical reasons decided by the administration. This contrasts with other departments where workers commonly leave the office for tea breaks and some do not even return in the afternoon.

25) Due to these numerous problems, the proportion of teachers having medical and psychological problems is high, and I suspect it is the highest proportion among government servants. It is no wonder that you never see smiles on teachers in school.

For full review, please read the article here, http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/200404130036675.php