KUCHING: The idea to bring English teachers from India to teach the subject in Malaysian schools, particularly in Sarawak, is not well received here.
Dr Ahi Sarok disagreed with the idea, saying Sarawak had many English teachers of her own.
“To me, bringing teachers from India to teach English in Sarawak is very impractical because we have many good English teachers.
“Our local English teachers should be trained instead of bringing those from India,” Dr Ahi,” who is Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) head of publication said yesterday.
He proposed that the available local English teachers should be trained further, instead of bringing the teachers from India.
He cited a friend by the name of Daniel, who is a qualified English teacher, but was instead assigned to teach Economic which he was not trained for.
Dr Ahi also said the students would face difficulties with teachers from India due to the different accent that they used.
“If we were to take English teachers from India, do they speak like we do. Our local language accent must be taken into consideration when it comes to teaching the language (English) here so that our students understand the language better,” he said.
Sarawak Teachers Union (STU) meanwhile welcomes the move, but stressed that it should only be done on a temporarily basis.
“We cannot depend on foreign expertise (English teachers) entirely because at the end of the day, we need to hire locals.
“So the most practical way is to train the locals to be fluent in the language,” he said, adding that it would be costly to continue employ foreigners.