Gira said the problem had been longstanding without any solution despite Sarawak MPs bringing up the issue in the Dewan Rakyat. – Photo by Roystein Emmor
SIBU (March 15): The Ministry of Education (MoE) should adopt a holistic approach and seek a comprehensive solution to address the shortage of Iban language teachers in Sarawak.
Tamin assemblyman Christopher Gira said this is because the problem had been longstanding without any solution in sight despite Sarawak members of Parliament bringing up the issue at the Dewan Rakyat in the past years.
“Therefore, I strongly disagree on the issue of Iban language teachers shortage being considered as insignificant,” he said in a statement.
Gira was reacting to the statement from State Education Department director Datu Dr Azhar Ahmad that there was no significant shortage of Iban language teachers in Sarawak.
He said the issue of the lack of Iban language teachers was not a new thing and the matter had also received attention from Sarawak Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.
“Uggah had already taken the approach to work with Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek in transferring Iban language study centre to local universities in Sarawak, especially to Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) to overcome the issue of lack of Iban language teachers.”
Gira also said Unimas is introducing another Iban language programme, which is Iban Language for Communication Professions, as an elective course, which will be offered to all students in the first semester of 2024/2025.
“This has proven how significant the complexity of the problems of shortage of Iban teachers in Sarawak is.”
Gira also questioned the decision of the MoE and the Malaysian Teacher Education institutes for not offering the Iban Language Bachelor’s Degree Programme (PISMP) for 2022 and 2023, especially for teaching in primary schools in Sarawak.
He said the number of primary schools offering Iban language classes in Sarawak is 693 out of 1,264 primary schools while the number of classes taking Iban language is 5,139, and the number of primary school pupils taking Iban language classes is 67,308 while the number of teachers teaching Iban language is 2,662.
“The issue here is, out of 2,662 teachers, only 352 teachers are trained and qualified to teach Iban language while 2,310 are not properly trained.
“For secondary schools, only 79 out of 502 Iban language teachers are qualified while 423 teachers are not properly trained.”
Gira reiterated the importance of filling Iban language teacher vacancies with trained individuals in order to ensure better teaching quality in the subject.
As such, he called for the recruitment of teachers to Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) taking up teaching of Iban language to be considered to address the shortage.
“Iban language is a cultural and linguistic asset that should be given priority by the MoE. It is not only an ethnic language but a language owned by all Malaysians.”