KUCHING: Teacher Training Institutes (IPGs) have been urged to revert from specialist to generalist training to enable their graduates to teach all subjects, including Science and Mathematics, said Sarawak Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Datuk Amar Michael Manyin Jawong today.
He said that if this could be done, the shortage of teachers to teach these two subjects, particularly in the interior of Sarawak, could be solved, and thus facilitate efforts to achieve the national target of having more science stream students.
“In Malaysia there is a target set for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) performance, that 60 per cent of our students should enter science classes. However, schools in Sarawak could only achieve 23 per cent, far lagging behind the target percentage,” he said.
Speaking to reporters after launching the ‘Buku Model STEM IR 4.0 Peringkat Menengah’ here today, he said that the state government had allocated RM6 million this year to retrain more than 5,000 school teachers so that they could teach Science, Mathematics and English subjects.
He said that these teachers were not trained to teach the three subjects while in universities or IPGs, but were forced to teach them in schools due to shortage of teachers especially in rural schools, which had resulted to poor achievement among the students.
Manyin said that the state government had also initiated the development of the Sarawak Science Centre at Jalan Stadium, Petra Jaya here, with aim of cultivating an interest in STEM among young Sarawakians, who could then contribute to expanding the state’s pool of capable human capital.
The centre, the first of its kind in the region, will be equipped with the facilities necessary for school children to learn more about STEM subjects, apart from providing hostels for rural students to stay when they come to visit the centre, he added. – Bernama
