Chinese-type national schools (SJKC) are suffering from a shortage of teachers. Now, the situation could worsen with the government's decision to teach Chinese and Tamil in national primary schools.

Last month, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced that the government will include Chinese and Tamil languages in the formal curriculum of all national schools as elective subjects.

The United Chinese School Teachers' Association (Jiao Zong) fears the latest development could lead to an exodus of teachers from Chinese-type national schools.

According to a Jiao Zong spokesperson, teachers, who are under intense pressure and have to deal with a heavy workloads, from these schools might apply for a transfer to national schools.

"There were cases where teachers trained in the Chinese section were assigned to national schools but they had good reason to apply for a transfer to SJKCs since they were trained in teaching Chinese, but after the implementation of the new curriculum they don't have a valid reason to ask for transfer," he said.

The spokesperson, who declined to be named, said although the number of teachers in SJKCs have increased in the past few years, the shortage is still critical.

The teacher to pupil ratio at SJKCs in Kuala Lumpur is 1:30, while the ratio at national schools is only 1:19.

According to the data gathered by Jiao Zong, the average shortage of teachers in SJKCs is around 3,000 every year. This is calculated based on the class to teacher ratio, which stands at 1:1.5.

However, the average number of SJKC teachers trained by the Education Ministry is around 1,000 per year.

Different methodology

Apart from this, the Jiao Zong spokesperson also argued that from an education viewpoint, only teachers trained to teach Chinese as a second language should be assigned to teach the language in national schools.

The government, he added, should not choose teachers from the Chinese section in training colleges since the pupils in national schools are learning Chinese as a second language instead of mother tongue.

"The ministry should train teachers for national schools separately and at the same time ensure enough teachers are provided to SJKCs. The government should be fair to all streams of education, not categorising them as important or less important," he said.

Agreeing to this, was a teacher based in Johor who recently graduated from the Chinese section of the Teacher Training Course (KDPM).

"We are not trained to teach Chinese as a second language in the teacher training programme. I don't think it is suitable for us to teach (Chinese in national schools), the teaching methodology is totally different," said the teacher who requested anonymity.

Another SJKC headmaster from Selangor told malaysiakini that currently there are only few teachers who have applied for a transfer.

"It is still not a major problem, only those (teachers) who preferred to work in a more relaxed working place had done so," she said.

Earlier this week, Deputy Education Minister Hon Choon Kim urged Chinese primary school teachers to stick with their present schools, saying he does not want the new policy to cause a shortage of teachers in vernacular schools.

He also promised to reject any request by Chinese school teachers to teach in national schools, according to report in a Chinese daily.