THEIR workload may have been reduced but teachers in government schools said they’re facing new burdens, such as paying for stationery for their pupils.

Budgetary cuts have also forced them to fork out their own money for school activities, such as clubs, religious classes and sporting events.

In fact, some teachers told The Malaysian Insight that as the cost to provide these things increase, schools will need to increase the parents’ portion of the parent-teacher association (PIBG) fees.

Teachers told The Malaysian Insight they have no choice but to use their own money so that their schools are able to hold certain activities deemed necessary by district education departments.

Such trends started during the Barisan Nasional administration, said the National Union of Teaching Professions (NUTP) and have continued under Pakatan Harapan.

“I’ve been spending about RM100 of my money each month for my classes. Each year that adds up to more than RM1,000. This is just photocopying costs. It doesn’t include other stuff,” said one teacher from Johor who requested anonymity.

Government teachers are barred from talking to the press without consent from the Education Ministry.

The “other stuff” includes costs to hold sports events because of insufficient funds from the PIBG and the school’s budget, said the Johor teacher.

“Most of the co-curricular activities are funded not just by the PIBG money but also from teacher donations. If its sports, the school will only choose activities that have potential to nurture talent.”

The Johor teacher said the ministry does provide funds for the school to hold co-curricular activities but the amount is insufficient.

“We used to have religious activities such as the Malidur Rasul celebration but we don’t have that any more,” said the Johor teacher, adding that schools only prioritise what’s in their annual calendar.

“We only hold sports events that we can afford. If we don’t hold them, the education department will ask us to justify the reason and they don’t accept not having enough money as an excuse.

“Like it or not, we are forced to accept this situation and chip in so that pupils can get the materials they need. If the school holds fewer co-curricular activities, then it would be hard to realise the full potential of our pupils.”

In his ministry’s 2019 report card, Education Minister Maszlee Malik said teachers’ workloads have been cut by 50% since he took over so that educators can spend more time on lessons rather than administrative tasks.

Next year, the ministry is expected to receive the biggest chunk of money from Budget 2020 at RM64.1 billion – RM3.9 billion more than 2018.

Of that amount, RM735 million will be spent on upgrading all schools throughout the country to provide a more conducive learning environments.

Fund-raisers, tapping parents

A teacher in Kelantan said school budgets have been further trimmed since PH took over from BN.

Some PIBGs in the state have started fund-raising dinners, said the teacher.

“Schools have had to really be careful with their budgets to run their programmes. At one time, my school didn’t even have enough money for placards,” said the teacher.

The school has had to stop holding a popular after-school programme called “kem bestari solat”, which teaches Muslim pupils how to pray properly, despite the fact that it was popular with parents.

“The end result is that in the future, schools will have to up their fees from parents or increase the PIBG contributions to keep holding programmes.”

A Kajang-based teacher said the above situation is not just prevalent in rural schools but also urban ones.

“It is not as bad in my school compared to the urban schools but there have been cuts to co-curricular activities.”

NUTP said the cutbacks started in 2017.

“The cuts involved all activities, academic, sports and co-curricular programmes,” said NUTP president Aminuddin Awang.

This has forced many schools to look for external funding and rely more and more on PIBGs to pay for activities, he said.

“This is where the skills of principals and headmasters come into play where they have to be smart enough to form outside networks to source for extra funds.”

He added that the ministry must ensure that schools get the funds they deserve. – December 31, 2019.