October 26, 2009 16:00 PM

Teachers Union Support Incentive Scheme

By Sajad Hussein

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 25 (Bernama) - The National Union of Teaching Profession (NUTP) is all excited about the government's proposal to reward high performing schools and fully supports the move, its secretary-general Lok Yim Pheng said Monday.

"We have always advocated for quality teachers and students and this move by the government fits into our scheme of things," she told Bernama.

However, she said that the incentives should be given not only to the principals and head teachers but also across the board to teachers and non-teaching staff of the school.

"After all the performance of the school is a team effort and all those who contribute should be rewarded accordingly," she said.

She was commenting on the move by the government to select 20 top performing schools and provide them with incentives and rewarding the principals and head teachers.

Lok said the NUTP was not agreeable to the suggestion that the selected schools should be penalised if they failed to perform for two years.

"We feel that penalising the schools is very drastic, what can be done instead is to deny the school the incentive for the year they do not perform," she said.

"But once they perform the following year they should be rewarded."

Penalising the school, she added, would put great pressure on the teachers and no teachers would want to serve a school that had been penalised.

Bernama understands that the ministry is now discussing with all stakeholders to come up with acceptable criteria and guidelines on the implementation of the proposal.

-- BERNAMA

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