On 25th May 2011, Borneo Post news on the “Masing questions alleged transfer of 80,000 teachers”gave Sarawakian quite a bit of material to discuss in kopitiam over a cup of kopi.

Ministry of Education to transfer 80,000 counselling teachers, from Peninsular Malaysia to the state next year, who do not have actual teaching job made Sarawakian wondered what is the purpose of having so many of them here? If Sarawakian do not ask for them why they come? Are our students really having so much problem that we need 80,000 of them to do counselling job. May be we should blame it on the Youtube for publishing ‘bully-case’ of students which prompted Ministry of Education to voluntarily transfer 80,000 specialists (counselling teachers) to do the job for us?

We should be grateful to these 80,000 counselling teachers who are of high morality and will help to boost the morality of the Sarawak state as well as bringing business to hawkers and supermarkets.

However, Sarawak Teachers’ Union (STU) calls on political leaders to check their facts on education matters with Ministry of Education (MOE) before releasing them in future, to avoid causing alarm and confusion among the public. So Sarawak Teachers’ Union is better informed than YB Masing?

Some Sarawakians always like to cast doubt on almost everything; they doubt the alleged coming of “80,000″ counselling teachers is untrue. They even suspect these 80,000 counselling teachers, despite being told it is no longer true, is more or less here as new voters to give more votes to Barisan Nasional. They even believe these so called 80,000 counselling teachers are UMNO members coming to set up branches here! Isn’t it ridiculous?

But I personally feel that even if it is true, it will bring more good than bad especially if all of them come to Sibu helping to increase the population of Sibu by 80,000. And if they marry to local the population of Sibu will increase by another 80,000 each year. Sibu population is just 250,000 (or less) therefore by just 3 years time, these 80,000 counselling teachers , only if it is true that they are coming, will help to double Sibu population. By simple arithmetic, Sibu will have enough population in just a few years to become a city! Their coming will definitely bring more cash inflow to Sibu giving everyone businesses. Let us just hope that it will become true next year.