The fate of outspoken math teacher to be known tomorrow

PUTRAJAYA - The fate of outspoken mathematics teacher who landed in hot waters for highlighting the plight of Malaysian students in the public domain will be known tomorrow.

Caretaker senior education minister Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin said that such was so as the Education Services Disciplinary Board will inform him of their decision over the case of Mohd Fadli Mohamed Salleh tomorrow.

"The Educational Services Disciplinary Board meeting on the issue has just ended and tomorrow the secretariat will deliver the result to the teacher (Mohd Fadli)," he told reporters after attending the 'Touch' sports programme here today.

Yesterday, Education director-general Datuk Pkharuddin Ghazali said the Education Services Disciplinary Board was scheduled to meet on October 17 after receiving the letter of representation submitted by Mohd Fadli on October 14.

Pkharuddin said that the show cause letter received by Mohd Fadli did not mean that the punishment had been meted out by the Education Service Disciplinary Board.

Mohd Fadli had previously claimed on his Facebook page that he would be fired or demoted for voicing his views on the national syllabus which he believed was of too high level and inappropriate for primary school students.

He also claimed that the number of students in the class was too many, while having too many subjects and the issue of students having to carry heavy bags was harmful to them.

Commenting on the matter, Radzi said that his ministry had already taken action on the issues raised by the Mathematics teacher.

For example, he said the ministry had introduced seven initiatives on March 6 to deal with the issue of heavy bags, including better arrangement of timetables and the installation of lockers.

He added that the syllabus currently used in schools was introduced in 2017.

"I have explained many times that the Ministry of Education (MoE) is open and accepts the views of all parties regarding this syllabus issue, we always review this syllabus," he said.

In the meantime, he reminded politicians not to politicise the syllabus issue during the 15th General Election (GE15) campaign.

"Politicians, my sincere advice, don't politicise the syllabus issue because the MoE always reviews the syllabus, and we want the best (for the students)," he said, adding that the ministry always engaged with teachers to improve the national education syllabus. - BERNAMA