Bernama:
KUCHING, Jan 23 (Bernama) -- The placement of some 600 new teachers in Sarawak by next month or March this year is expected to help ease the shortage of teachers, especially in the rural areas, state Welfare, Women and Family Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah said Wednesday.Teacher shortage problem in rural area like this makes Teach For Malaysia a noble project.
She said these teachers would be posted to primary and secondary schools which faced shortages mainly of religious and Malay language teachers.[...]
At present, she said, there were 364 vacancies out of a quota of 14,327 to be filled in the secondary schools, while the national primary schools had 354 out of a quota of 20,002 and the national-type schools another 64 out of 5,111.
Data from the education department also showed that a total of 4,117 Sarawak-born teachers were serving outside the state, including 879 in Sabah, 821 in Selangor, 638 in Johor and 292 in the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur as at Oct 31, last year.
On the closure of schools with only a handful of students, Fatimah said there were currently 600 schools with less than 150 students state-wide, but the relevant authories, including the education department, would first hold discussions with the local community before any decision was made to close or relocate such schools elsewhere.