SKT...

...that's short for Sasaran Kerja Tahunan. And this is how gahmen servants are appraised. Appraisal is part and parcel of any jobs. Appraisals are important cos through it we canpick the right people to reward and identify those people with potential for greater responsibilities.

Tis the time of the year when we have to fill in the SKT forms. Throughout this later part of my teaching career we are constantly reminded that all teachers are the same... there can be nothing extraordinary from any individual (or groups of) teacher where classroom teaching is concerned. All of us are supposed to be same! Sama-sama mediocre or cemerlang, whichever way you want to interpret. Maybe the people up there think we are all like the ants... worker ants, warrior ants - semua can work and work the same way; with no brains of our own.

Our bosses never fail to remind us that to be awarded the APC one must have lots of outside involvement... (which makes up 5% of the total). That 5% is supposed to determine whether we are par excellent, not whether we are able to teach effectively, or whether most of our students do well in their exams... but how kaypoh we are in and out of the school... but if we look further I think it's lip service cos finally award goes to those favoured ones; those who 'jack'.

Being a good teacher doesn't seem to matter much these days. The business of teaching has taken on a different face, I feel. It's leaning more towards the art of hoodwinking others into believing that you have done exceptionally well when it's not so. It is also important that you learn the art of dressing up your SKT forms.... it's the content that will get you the recognition, not the actual work done. Some of us call it survival skills. And you wonder how the admin people fail to arrest that. And then realization - and it's with horrors of horrors; they got where they are now with the same modus operandi. A vicious cycle has now been perpetuated.

And oh yes! This year I overheard this from a very senior teacher who has been stuck at her max for 9 years. Apparently the second boss told her not to expect anything.... What a way to tell a teacher... your work didn't really make the grade. Then I overheard again, how the PK HEM wrote about 20 pages worth of SKT (leaves me scratching my head what's on it....) Wonder the outcome of this whole thing... since we've been about visits to the boss' house, etc, etc.... Well, looks like paper work is the way to go....

So mediocrity, cronyism and inefficiency; like the Chimera, a monstrous creature made up multi-animals and which has also come to represent the foolishness that we've brought upon ourselves, continue to be the hallmark of our teaching profession... at least from my standpoint.

The Minister of Education recently said that schools that perform will be awarded high performance standard...We already have so many different categorization of schools, so many awards like Sekolah Harapan, etc, etc... This latest effort seems to point to the fact that we are still trying to find a way to get ourselves out of this mediocrity pit that we've gotten ourselves into. Sinking... sinking... sinking... trying to grab hold of something....