English teachers to come from India? PAS asks Putrajaya

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-s On Sep 13, 2013

(MMO) – PAS demanded to know today if Putrajaya had already inked a deal to import English teachers from India prior to announcing the National Education Blueprint, noting the short three-year notice the government had given to turn every school English-ready by 2016.

The party’s information chief Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said the decision to turn English into a must-pass subject seemed to come without any semblance of an action plan to address Malaysia’s stark shortage of qualified English teachers.

In a statement here, Tuan Ibrahim pointed out that while announcing its plans to improve English proficiency here, the government had in the same breath admitted that over 70 per cent of the country’s 60,000 English teachers had scored poorly in the English Language Cambridge Placement Test.

“This means at least two-thirds of our English teachers are considered ‘incapable’ or ‘unqualified’ to teach the subject in school,” he said.

“Is this likely to be resolved by 2016? What about the students, especially those in the rural areas, how would they prepare themselves to face a must-pass English examination from now until 2016 with the current quality of our teachers?” he added.

Tuan Ibrahim recalled that when Datuk Seri Najib Razak visited India on December 20 last year, the prime minister had urged his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh to consider sending its English teachers to teach Malaysian students.

According to a news report on English daily The Star, Najib had said that this would help ease the government’s burden on finding ways to address the current shortage of English teachers here.

“One of the suggestions I raised for the consideration of the Indian Prime Minister is for us to receive teachers in India who are fluent in English to teach our students in Malaysia.

“He welcomed the idea and will instruct the relevant ministry to hold discussions with the (Malaysian) Education Ministry to realise this,” he was quoted as saying in the December 20 report.

Reminded of the incident, Tuan Ibrahim asked if Putrajaya had gone ahead with the plan to import teachers from India but was keeping the deal a secret for fail of a backlash ahead of the coming Umno general assembly.

“Looking at the government’s apparent confidence in turning English into a must-pass subject, PAS would like to ask if this plan to import Indian teachers was kept under wraps?

“Did the government strike a deal with the Indian government before announcing the National Education Blueprint?” the PAS leader asked.

“Was this step to make English a mandatory passing subject merely for the benefit of commissions to specific parties who were tasked with importing these Indian teachers?” he continued.