State Welfare, Family and Women Development Minister Fatimah Abdullah said the ratio of local teachers to those from other states now stood at 77:20.

“With the leaving of 1,164 teachers from Peninsular Malaysia, there are now 31,652 local teachers and 8,173 teachers from other states (in Sarawak),” Fatimah told The Borneo Post yesterday.

She also explained that three per cent of the ratio were vacancies for 553 teachers, 184 of which had been filled by local teachers who started work on February 1.

The remaining 369 spots would be sourced from the ‘open market’, Fatimah explained, referring to teachers who have graduated from other public or private higher education institutes such as Unitar (Universiti Tun Abdul Razak) rather than the official teachers’ training institutes or colleges.

“We are now in the process of filtering these applications. If recruited, these teachers will be contract or interim teachers.”

Stressing that the Ministry of Education would not compromise on quality when recruiting teachers, she also expressed confidence that the 90:10 Initiative by Adenan would be realised by 2018 as planned.

“We are going towards that direction and the 90:10 Initiative will definitely be achievable as scheduled. This shows that what the Opposition claims – that the initiatives of Adenan are only talks – is not true,” said Fatimah.