SERIAN, Jan 31: The state Education, Science and Technological Research Ministry has set up a committee to monitor the teaching of Science and Mathematics subjects in English for six months.
Its minister, Datuk Seri Michael Manyin Jawong, said the committee comprising officers from the Education Ministry and state department will report monthly on the progress of the teaching methods and its effectiveness.
“The committee will give a report within one month whether the teachers are doing well or otherwise, with the teaching of the subjects in English.
“We are monitoring for at least six months to ensure that teachers are really teaching in English and capable of doing it,” he told reporters after a ceremony to welcome new Serian resident, Tuah Suni, here yesterday.
The event at Serian Community Hall also bid farewell to former resident Johnathan Lugoh.
Manyin said it is still to early to say whether the teachers are doing well or not, because it has been only two weeks since the implementation of the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English starting this year.
He assured that teachers found to be incompetent will be retrained.
“When the monitoring committee found that certain teachers are not competent, we will retrain them because we want intervention immediately, otherwise the policy will be a failure,” he said.
Manyin did not rule out the probability that a lot of teachers might not be up to the standard because they have been teaching the subjects in Bahasa Malaysia for years, and were given only a week’s training.
Sarawak is the first state in the country to teach Science and Mathematics in English, which involved 1,046 Year One pupils statewide, except for Chinese-medium schools, which preferred to teach the subjects in Mandarin.
The exercise involved 2,657 teachers, comprising 1,005 Science teachers, 1,005 Mathematics teachers and 377 teachers for both subjects. — DayakDaily
