Speaking to FMT, Azimah said this would go a long way in helping teachers cope with their workload, especially on days when they have to take unplanned leave, as they had a limited number of annual leave days.

Yesterday, in commenting on the issue of teachers having to work during school holidays, Azimah said teachers, like all civil servants, were not entitled to leave during school holidays and would have to use their 30-day annual leave entitlement.

However, some FMT readers pointed out that teaching staff were only entitled to seven annual leave days.

While acknowledging that teachers were only entitled to seven and not 30 annual leave days, Azimah said school teachers also got school holidays off.

Thus, she said school holidays did not automatically mean teachers did not need to work as they could be recalled for duty.

“Not all teachers are asked to come back during school holidays,” she said, adding only a “skeleton team” of teachers had to return and this was on a rotation basis.

She said it was left to the school headmaster’s discretion to decide which teachers would return during the school holidays.

“Autonomy in schools should be upheld. Let us not dictate and allow the headmasters to manage their resources.”

The issue of teachers having to work during school holidays was sparked by a tweet from one Abdullah Mohd Nawi who said his wife, a teacher, had to return to school during the first week of school holidays and had been busy marking exam papers the rest of the time.

Abdullah said he had taken annual leave with the intention of enjoying a break with his wife and added there had to be a better way for teachers to have an actual break during the school break.