Kindergarten, pre-school teachers need be given special salary scheme: Zahid

HUTAN MELINTANG: Private and public kindergarten and pre-school teachers need to be given a special salary scheme to enable them to earn minimum salary, to bring them out of poverty.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the government wanted these teachers to earn a reasonable salary so that they could feel calm and focus on the job of teaching their pupils towards achieving educational excellence.
"The government's wish is to help these teachers who have all this while been left behind, neglected and sidelined ... we want them to be given a special salary scheme although not similar to the scheme for teachers at the government schools currently, but at least they will be better off."
Ahmad Zahid said this during the opening of the Bagan Datuk Pre-School Sports Carnival, here today.
Also present were Community Development Department (Kemas) director-general, Datuk Amiruddin Ariffin and state Youth, Sports and Human Resource Committee chairman, Datuk Shahrul Zaman Yahya.
In this regard, he said the government proposed that the training for teachers of private and public kindergartens and pre-schools be streamlined to enable them to obtain minimum salary, as currently these teachers did not have a minimum salary scheme as accorded to other teachers.
Ahmad Zahid said he had asked the Education Ministry, Kemas, the Department of National Unity and Integration, and a number of higher education institutions to carry out a detailed study on streamlining training for kindergarten and pre-school teachers.
"There are teachers who receive a very small salary while there are others who get quite a high salary because they teach at private kindergartens.
"When the training is streamlined and the syllabi co-ordinated, I hope these teachers will be given at least minimum salary," he said.
Ahmad Zahid said streamlining of education needed to be done to avoid haphazardness between government-run and private educational institutions.
He added that the process of early nurturing and character-building should also be streamlined with the quality of education, as these pupils would be important assets to the country.
Speaking after the ground-breaking ceremony of Politeknik Bagan Datuk, Ahmad Zahid said the government was drawing up a mechanism to revamp the country's kindergarten and pre-school education system, including streamlining their curriculum and syllabi.
"I had chaired the National Social Council meeting last Friday, where several proposals were made on streamlining the early education system involving kindergartens and pre-schools managed by the relevant ministry and the private sector."
He said among topics discussed, were a minimum salary for kindergarten and pre-school teachers and short-term courses for those with the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM).
Ahmad Zahid, who is also the MP for Bagan Datuk, said the increasing number of kindergartens and pre-schools in the country had resulted in no streamlining of syllabus between the government-run and the privately-run ones.
Meanwhile, he urged kindergarten and pre-school teachers who studied up to SPM level, but without any certificate or pedagogy skills, to take up short-term courses for at least three months to enable their minimum salary to be standardised for the sake of their own future. — Bernama