Friday March 4, 2011
By MUGUNTHAN VANAR mugu@thestar.com.my
TONGOD: The termination letters issued to untrained attachment teachers (GSTT) last year have been withdrawn, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced.
Muhyiddin, who is Education Minister, said he had studied the matter and decided that teachers under the GSTT scheme could continue teaching.
He said there were 13,000 teachers under the scheme nationwide and that the GSTTs in Sabah were among those issued with the letters.
“I’ve asked the ministry director-general to issue letters to those who have served between two and five years, informing them that they can continue teaching.
“I’ve also asked that the termination letters issued last year be withdrawn to give them the opportunity to serve, and to post them to suitable areas,” he told reporters yesterday after handing out dividends for the Tongod hardcore poor development programme’s farm project and the Lampapas Tongod communal grants.
He was commenting on the plight of 578 GSTTs in Sabah whose contracts were terminated, and requests from various parties, including from Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan, for their contracts to be renewed.
Muhyiddin also announced the setting up of a special task force to oversee school building development for Sabah.
He said this was necessary as there were several cases of such projects being delayed or abandoned.
“These things should not have happened,” he said in his speech at SMK Datuk Peter Mojuntin in Penampang.
Earlier, Muhyiddin received Sabah’s first class Seri Panglima Darjah Kinabalu (Datuk Seri Panglima) award from the Yang di-Pertua Negri Datuk Seri Panglima Juhar Mahiruddin at Istana Negeri.