I REFER to “Early retirement among teachers worrying” (The Star, April 20; online at https://bit.ly/3K23ewS), in which Umno deputy president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan urged the Education Ministry to explain why so many teachers were choosing to take optional retirement when they could still contribute to their noble profession.
Mohamad was reacting to the National Union of the Teaching Profession’s (NUTP) claim that more than 10,000 teachers have been submitting applications annually for early retirement over the past few years, and this was in addition to the equal number of teachers who were leaving the service on mandatory retirement.