PUTRAJAYA: No special quota has been allocated for contract of service (COS) teachers in the one-off intake for Grade DG41 education service officers, says Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin.

       The Education Minister said the priority in the selection of teachers would be on graduates with education majors.

       "We do not have the full data on the number of graduates possessing education majors in the market. Due to that, we made a projection and submitted a list of about 4,000 candidates with no education majors to the Public Service Department.

       "It was actually a shortlist, not a quota, of COS candidates,” he said at a media conference on the abolition of the Form Three Assessment (PT3) examination here.

       He was commenting on allegations by several parties that the Education Service Commission (SPP) and Education Ministry were not transparent in the results of the COS interview that were released recently, besides claiming that the quota of 5,000 teachers had been reduced to 2,400.

       Radzi also said that each COS recruitment was done with careful scrutiny.

       "There is a group of about 200 graduates with education majors... SPP found them qualified but they have yet to receive their letters from the university senate. It’s not fair if we neglect them because it’s not their fault.

       "That’s why, technically, we took them in through the COS and it has nothing to do with COS (teachers) without education majors,” he said.

       On May 11, Radzi was reported to have said that a total of 2,400 vacancies in the one-off recruitment of 18,702 teachers would be filled by COS teachers whose contracts are due to end this month. - Bernama