UMNO ASSEMBLY A Pahang Umno delegate has highlighted the plight of teachers spending long hours to key-in the result of their pupils , resulting in the collateral damage of marital problems.

NONE Ahmad Nazlan Idris, from Jerantut, says teachers take a long time to complete their task.

"Some have to key in until the wee hours of the morning. This resulted in their spouses to sleep alone in the cold. This has also resulted in a strain in the teachers' marriage relationship and the harmony in their ties," he said.

Another pain they have to suffer is being harnessed to their computers leaves them little time to devote to their profession duty of preparing teaching materials for the day.

"The teachers themselves cannot prepare for their teaching material for the next morning because of such clerical work.

The Jerantut Umno delegate also urged the government to improve communications infrastructure in rural areas, which he claims have added to teachers' problems being unable to key-in the data due to bad Internet connection.

Ahmad Nazlan warned that if such problems are not resolved, Umno might lose the support of the teachers.

Congestion problems

NONE His views were also shared by Perlis delegate Ramli Sharif, who urged Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin ( right ) who is also education minister, to look into the plight of teachers hit by this problem ever since the Education Ministry came up with the Sistem Pengurusan Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah (SPPBS).

He said that he had made a promise to bring this matter up at the Umno assembly as teachers are spending too much time keying in data.

"There seems to be a congestion problem as the server only accepts Internet Explorer browsers. This has resulted in teachers spending hours at night from 10pm until 3am to key-in the data. Please look into resolving this problem or else the teachers will be upset and they would not support us," he said.

It was previously reported that teachers had set up a Facebook page to gather support and pressure the Education Ministry into improving the system further.

They are trying to gather 200,000 likes before presenting their demands to the minister.

Ahmad Nazlan also wants the universities to look into reasons why bumiputera students are not performing well, in public universities where few qualify for first class honours.

He said only 23.6 percent of Malays and bumiputera obtained first class honours while Chinese account for 67.3 percent.

"This has resulted in an imbalance where most Malay students are required to pay their National Higher Education loan in full compared with the Chinese," he said.

"Please ask the vice-chancellors to look into ways for Malay and bumiputera students to improve further," he said.

Muhiyddin pledges changes

During his winding-up speech today, Muhyiddin gave the assurance that the system would be improved immediately.

He said the School-Based Assessment System (PBS) will be implemented in a more effective manner in April next year to avoid it from being a burden to the teachers.

"What is posing a problem is not the policy but its implementation which is burdening the teachers. I wish to give an assurance that we will overcome this problem in the best manner," he said when winding up the debate on the last day of the Umno general assembly 2013 at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) today.

Muhyiddin said he had directed the ministry to improve access to the system for teachers to fill up the students' performance without too much problem.