National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) secretary-general Harry Tan said they were now in the midst of compiling complaints from teachers and parents.
“NUTP was never engaged in this PdPR 2.0”, he told FMT.
He said under PdPR 2.0, the learning process follows a full timetable, similar to the ones in school but with a new feature involving tutorials.
“If a teacher has two periods of a total of 60 minutes, 30 minutes will be for the students to do their homework and the teacher will be on call.”
Some teachers have already taken their unhappiness over PdPR 2.0 to social media.
One teacher, MK Izzuddin, asked if the ministry thought online learning was the same as learning in the classroom.
“Does the ministry realise how long it takes for teachers to prepare the content for each topic?”
Izzuddin also voiced concern on the impact of such a tightly packed online learning schedule on children, especially since some families may have a few schoolgoing children.
“Is the ministry taking into account the burden shouldered by parents who have to monitor their children’s online learning? What about their work if they have to monitor their children from 7.30am to 1pm every day?”
Other teachers also complained about the packed schedule, saying they were already working long hours to prepare lessons. Some even said they could not help their own children with their studies because they had to put their work first.
Meanwhile, former education minister Maszlee Malik said a school-like schedule for online learning was unreasonable and would take a toll on teachers.
He claimed to have received information that some state education departments had already issued letters forcing teachers to teach five subjects a day.
Maszlee said the new manual should be set aside and teachers should be given the autonomy to conduct online classes according to their capacity and the students’ access to online learning.
FMT has reached out to the education ministry for comments on the manual, which is understood to have been released on Tuesday.