THE Education Ministry will stop competitions, festivities and ceremonies in school that do not have an impact on learning and which increase the workload of teachers.

Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek said such events include competitions for cheerfulness, the best toilet, and the best textbook loan scheme.

She said the decision is among the seven steps taken by the MOE to improve the welfare of teachers.

“All these steps will be detailed by the top management of the MOE and will be implemented from the 2023/2024 school session,” she said in a statement today.

She said another measure to cut the teachers’ workload is to reduce the frequency of the Malaysian Education Quality Standard review to once a year.

“Another measure is to set a more flexible lock-in time for student attendance records for teachers, which is noon for morning sessions and 5pm for afternoon sessions, to prevent congestion in the system,” she said.

Fadhlina said appointments of public examination invigilators by the Examinations Board and the Malaysian Examinations Council are open to government retirees and students of the Institute of Teacher Education and institutions of higher learning.

The ministry will also limit the organisation of the annual Teacher’s Day celebration to national and school levels, in addition to setting a summary of the daily lesson plan (RPH) at the MOE level, to ensure that it meets the requirements of the ministry’s Circular No. 3/1999.

She added that the seventh measure is to strengthen the autonomy of teachers in the planning and implementation of teaching and learning, as well as classroom-based assessment, with the Standard Curriculum and Assessment Document as reference. – Bernama, February 18, 2023.