Police investigate alleged corruption in education ministry

Police investigate alleged corruption in education ministry

Malaysia’s Ministry of Education has filed a police report on an alleged case of corruption involving in a teacher transfer process.

The case had gone viral on social media after a teacher posted a claim that personnel handling her transfer had requested for money in exchange for the move to her preferred school.

The police will conduct have been tasked to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter. The ministry would also conduct an internal investigation of its own, said education minister Dr Maszlee Malik.

“Nobody is above the law and the new administration will ensure good governance. So if anyone takes the opportunity or abuses their power, we will take stringent action against them,” he added.

“We advise teachers to contact us should they come across such issues and not a third party to prevent any fraud in the process (of transferring).”

There are three main criteria involved in the process of approving a teacher’s transfer request: service, vacancy and schools’ needs in the requested state.

Other situations that are taken into consideration include whether the teacher aims to accompany his/her spouse to another state, safety reasons, chronic disease and length of service in a school.

Latest figures from the country’s ministry found that about 8% of the 25,332 teachers who applied for transfers were successful.

Top three reasons that led to approvals were accompanying the spouse, length of service and other reasonable factors, reported The Sun Daily.

 

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