Compiled by C. ARUNO, GERARD GIMINO and R. ARAVINTHAN

       SOME 1,000 teachers who were hired under the Education Ministry’s special one-off exercise last year will be allocated to Chinese vernacular schools, says Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Mah Hang Soon.

       Sin Chew Daily reported that the move is expected to fill up the 1,010 vacancies among SJKCs.

       According to Dr Mah, 340 of those hired under the initiative have already been assigned, with a further 400 expected to be assigned next month. As for the remaining 270 vacancies, there will be a third round of screening to get teachers to fill up the spots, he said.

       It was reported that the ministry will be implementing a one-off initiative to recruit 18,702 teachers in four states facing teacher shortages.

       The application for the special recruitment of grade DG41 education service officers was opened on July 7, 2021, and teachers recruited were sent to schools beginning October last year.

       Dr Mah said the biggest challenge faced by the ministry is to get applicants to sign up for less popular subjects such as History, and Arts and Craft, and urged the public to help encourage aspiring teachers to do so to address the shortage.

       > A woman in Taiwan was shocked to discover that her adult boyfriend continued to take baths with his mother when she visited their family home during Chinese New Year, the daily also reported.

       The boyfriend was baffled by her reaction and said his mother was “good at taking baths and would even help him scrub his back”.

       The frustrated girlfriend posted the incident online to seek others’ opinions: “Do other men continue to take baths with their mothers? Am I the one making a mountain out of a molehill?”

       When the woman’s post went viral, many Internet users called it a “mama’s boy red flag”.

       “It’s so disgusting! Just break up quickly,” one wrote.

       > A pair of newlyweds in China got a pleasant surprise after flipping through old photos, only to discover that the two of them had appeared in the same photo some 20 years ago before they even knew each other, China Press reported.

       The woman made the stunning discovery when she went through old photos with her husband recently and realised that the man standing in the background of a shot taken at Qingdao’s May Fourth Square was none other than her husband.

       It was reported that the woman had brought her mother to Qingdao for medical treatment in 2001 and decided to pose for a photo by the May Wind sculpture at the square.

       As fate would have it, standing just behind her then was the man she was to marry two decades later!

       The husband recalled that it was his first work trip to Qingdao and he took a photo of the sculpture to commemorate the event.

       The couple shared their respective photos with friends, who said the two were meant to be together.

       The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.