STU president Adam Prakash Abdullah said many unemployed graduates with education degrees in the state had reached out to him upon hearing about the government’s recruitment drive.
Education minister Radzi Jidin last week announced that the ministry would launch a special one-off recruitment drive for 18,702 teachers next month to address a shortage in four states, including Sarawak.
Adam told FMT: “I think everybody is excited. We would like to see vacancies filled immediately and I call on all qualified education graduates to apply,” he said, adding that Sarawak was short of around 3,000 teachers.
“The first thought is that all unemployed graduates must be employed. That’s the (most) important thing.”
Radzi on Sunday said a special recruitment of grade DG41 education service officers would begin on July 7 to enable these teachers to be placed in their respective schools in stages from October.
Sabah, Selangor and Johor are the other states included in the programme.
Large parts of Sarawak remain inaccessible with no proper roads, leaving Malaysia’s biggest state with a unique set of challenges in attracting teachers.
While Radzi said the main hurdles in teacher recruitment included a lack of candidates from institutes of teacher education and a mismatch of subject options, Sarawakian activist Umie Liau said many Sarawakians had graduated from Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI), the country’s oldest teacher training institution, but remained unemployed.
Umie, who conducts a free mobile English clinic for primary school pupils at the Bakun resettlement scheme in Sungai Asap, Belaga, also claimed that these graduates “were not even called for an interview” despite graduating in 2019.
“They purposely did their degrees in education. Why is the government not giving them teaching jobs?” she asked.
“These graduates need encouragement, and we also need to encourage other younger Sarawakians to enter the teaching or education field in the future.
“If our government can’t provide jobs for these graduates, I don’t think anyone will take up such courses in the future. If that is the case, how can Sarawak solve its teacher shortage?”