KUALA LUMPUR, 3 June: Disturbance by a senior officer of the Ministry of Education towards a teacher who uploaded a poster of the DAP candidate in the Teluk Intan parliamentary by-election is an action that is overboard.
Citing Keadilan Daily, this happened when the officer contacted the teacher involved and gave ‘advice’.
The Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Education Buraru Director, Abbas Awang, said that the move is considered by him as a threat that curtails the teacher’s freedom of speech.
“This is a backward action. The ministry should not restrict the freedom of the teacher to express their opinion. With this restriction, it means that the ministry is deteriorating the quality of teachers,” he said.
According to prior news reports, a teacher, who did not want his name to be published, claimed that he was contacted by a senior officer of the ministry who asked him to shut down his Facebook page and said that he was being ‘monitored’.
The teacher, who has served for 16 years, claimed that the ministry is more interested in monitoring the his social networking site instead of taking action against a group of teachers involved in more serious problems.
Abbas, who is also the former Director of Education in the Federal Territory, was shocked with the ministry’s actions and thinks that it was done under the orders of certain groups.
Clearly, the order was issued due to BN being afraid and threatened by support from teachers and civil servants towards PR’s advancement.
“This is because the quality of our education has declined because there are parties who are more concerned with political powered rather than to strive to improve the quality of education,” he said.
