KUCHING: English training for teachers of Mathematics and Science will be a tough challenge and all those responsible for it cannot afford to fail.
State Education, Science and Technological Research Minister Datuk Seri Michael Manyin Jawong stressed this point yesterday at Baitulmakmur Building in Petra Jaya during a press conference on the implementation of English for teaching Mathematics and Science.
The budget for the first year of training will be approximately RM9 million which includes the teaching materials.
“The number of teachers that require training next year is 2,657. Breaking the number down by subjects there are 1,005 teachers for Science, 1,275 for Maths, and 377 for both subjects,” he explained.
For six years (Primary 1 to Primary 6) the ministry needs to train 7,508 teachers – 2,823 for Science, 3,978 for Maths and 707 for both subjects.
“I believe that this won’t be the actual total number. It could be fewer than that as some teachers have already been trained,” he said.
He further revealed that together with the relevant sections in the ministry and the Education Department, discussions were held for five hours in a meeting last Tuesday and the ministry had decided to prepare the models and materials to be used for training that will commence at the end of this coming August.
“There is already a model but we will have another meeting to discuss and customise it to the needs of Sarawak,” he said.
Manyin also revealed that the Institute of Teacher Education had informed the ministry that they have many qualified teachers to teach English.
And if there are not enough such teachers, University Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), University Technology Mara (UiTM), Curtin University and Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak are ready to help.
“In terms of teacher-trainers, there are many qualified people. We are not going for just grammar but for functional English,” he said.
