SIBU: Sarawak Teachers’ Union (STU) suggests training more trainers for institutions of higher learning and teachers training colleges to overcome the shortage of English teachers.
Its president William Ghani Bina said yesterday that while the union lauded the move to recruit 375 native-speaking teachers, including from the United Kingdom and Australia, to further enhance teaching of English, it was just a short-term measure.
Engaging their services would be costly and it would be much more effective to train the locals, he opined.
“For long-term planning, it is vital that trainers be trained and, perhaps, be sent for an overseas stint to places such as England, New Zealand, Australia and so on, to master the language,” he suggested.
He stressed that upon returning from their overseas stint, the trainers must be stationed at universities or teachers training colleges to train others to ensure a steady supply of English teachers.
If trainers were assigned to administrative duties, it would defeat the purpose of sending them for overseas training in the first place, he pointed out.
On native-speaking teachers, Ghani suggested that they conduct regular workshops for local teachers to make them more adept at the language.
Giving his views of the budget, he said it was a very caring and truly a 1Malaysia budget where education was given high priority.
“This shows that the government is very serious about producing high quality human capital which can compete at the international level and help the country to progress further.
“The government has continued to treat education as an investment for the future of the country,” he said. In this regard, he called on parents to continue to work closely with teachers to bring the best out of their children.