The National Union of Teaching Profession (NUTP) said some schools were forcing teachers to teach beyond the 23-hour limit per week.
NUTP secretary-general Lok Yim Phengsaid the union was also against the instruction for the body mass index (BMI) of students to be measured because it would add to the teachers’ current workload.
Lok said the students’ BMI should be measured during their annual health checks by nurses from the Health Ministry.
She said with the introduction of the Standard Curriculum for Primary Schools (KSSR) programme for Year One pupils this year, the ministry had set the teaching hours at 23 hours, which was sufficient for pupils at that level.
“We want to encourage fun learning and pupils should be given room to grow physically and emotionally. We do not want to create children who are like robots, but those who are able to think for themselves,” said Lok after the NUTP exco meeting yesterday.
“This is not a matter of teachers being calculative with time. If we make children study for too many hours, the other aspects of their growth may also be affected, such as whether or not they get enough rest.”
Lok also pointed out the high number of evaluation forms that teachers had to fill under the programme due to the incomplete setup of the computer-based evaluation system.
“We fully support the programme but we want the Malaysian Examinations Syndicate to quicken the process of setting up the computer-based system,” she said.
Lok said Year One teachers now were required to fill up to 18 forms per student per subject manually, which could affect their teaching performance.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
