Adam (centre) speaking at the press conference.
KUCHING (Dec 20): Sarawak Teachers’ Union (STU) is urging the relevant authorities to extend high speed internet coverage to all schools, particularly rural schools across the state to ease teaching and learning.
Its newly-minted president Adam Parkash Abdullah said many teachers, especially those teaching in rural schools, had been facing difficulties in searching for internet signal in their respective areas.
“Internet connectivity in rural schools is very bad. I can tell you a school located along the Pan Borneo Highway, teachers have to search for signal.
“There are already stories involving teachers leading students into the forests to search for internet signal on a higher ground, and some students have to climb a tree in order to get internet connectivity.
“This is a situation which the relevant authorities can improve on. Providing internet connectivity to all schools should be the priority of the government in terms of human capital development,” he said at a press conference after the STU’s 25th biennial delegates conference held at a hotel here today.
In light of the standard operating procedures (SOP) put in place to curb the spread of Covid-19, Adam said many teachers had to resort to using their own Internet data to give lessons.
He lamented that teachers had exhausted their personal internet data for the sake of teaching online.
As such, he called upon the relevant authorities to provide internet data allowance to teachers to assist them in conducting online lessons.
According to Adam, Sarawak is facing a shortage of religious teachers, and this issue is not new.
To address such issue, he suggested that the government train more Sarawakian teacher candidates to be religious teachers rather than placing religious teachers from Peninsular Malaysia in the state.
“Religious teachers from Peninsular Malaysia teaching in Sarawak is temporary and they will return to their home state. Once they return, a vacuum happens again.
“It is better to have Sarawakian teacher candidates be trained to be religious teachers,” he said.
He added that the government could even come up with special incentives to encourage Sarawakian teachers to be trained as religious teachers.
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