Wednesday August 15, 2007
Chinese school-leavers can become trainee teachers to overcome shortage
By KAREN CHAPMAN
PUTRAJAYA: School-leavers from Chinese independent schools will be accepted into teacher-training institutes from this year.
Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said this was to overcome the shortage of Chinese teachers in national schools.
“We have agreed in principle to take these students in. We are now working out the conditions of entry with the teacher-training institutes,” he said after receiving a courtesy call from the Maldives’ Education Minister Zahiya Zahir at his office.
The proposal to teach Chinese and Tamil in national schools was made by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to attract more non-bumiputras to national schools.
As part of a pilot project this year before the two languages are introduced in all national schools, Chinese is being taught in 150 national schools and Tamil in 70.
Hishammuddin described the move to accept students from Chinese independent schools as historic, adding that it had been a proposal from the MCA Youth to overcome the shortage of Chinese teachers in national schools.
“We cannot take these teachers from vernacular schools and it may not be suitable to take in teachers from China for this purpose,” he said.
As a start, he said these teachers would be placed at the schools on a contract basis because this was a new scheme.
“If it is well accepted then we can expand it further,” he said.
On another matter, Hishammuddin said the onus of ensuring the quality and freshness of milk under the school milk programme was on the suppliers.
He called on the suppliers to be more proactive.
“There are only six suppliers. They should get their act together. What are they doing to ensure teachers know they shouldn’t staple the boxes (of milk)?
He was asked about a report where a teacher had allegedly stapled the class names onto the milk packets a day before the milk was distributed, causing holes in the packets and resulting in it becoming contaminated.
The school milk programme was suspended again last week after 60 pupils of SK Seberang Ketilin in Kedah and 57 pupils from SK Beris Panchor in Kelantan came down with food poisoning after drinking the milk.
Meanwhile, Hishammuddin said Zahiya was impressed with the multiracial system in Malaysia.
“Her 15-year old son is studying in a private school here,” he said.
There are more than 1,000 students from Maldives studying in Malaysian schools and institutes of higher learning.
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