Annual Performance Awards

I was invited to attend a meeting together with all my school administrators to handle annual appraisal of teachers in the schools.

It was my first participation in such affair.

We were briefed on procedures to select teachers to be awarded the annual best performance awards. Firstly we shorlisted names according to categories such as DG41,DG44 and DG32. Then they were chosen on rotation basis or seniority basis.

In the discussion we exchanged views on the performance of teachers in the fields of academics,co-curricular and others. But no weightage was given to each field for us to decide on the awards.

We also touched on the proactive behaviours of teachers. We noticed that some are proactive in outside class activities and some are proactive in the class. It was a challenging and difficult task to make decisions on the awards.

Who to choose?

My friend called me yerterday night about the ways used to do appraisal. He felt that it's unfair for those who work diligently to help upgrade the academic performance in the class without noticed by the head of department compared to those who play truant but are active in the fields only and noticed by all.

Normally those are more active in the fields will be given the awards.

Besides, there are teachers who always show up only when the heads are around. Maybe they are regarded as proactive teachers in the eyes of the heads and get the awards also.

I am of the view that weightage should be made according to performance in all fields such as 80% in the academics, 10% in the co-curricular activities and 10% in others.

It will be a better appraisal instrument.