Education, Careers & Professional News
Government To Hire Foreign Tutors
Government To Hire Foreign Tutors
Despite opposition from the teachers union, the Government will go ahead and hire language teachers from China and India to teach Mandarin and Tamil as elective subjects in national schools.
The NUTP (National Union of the Teaching Profession) is against this move but I dont see anything wrong with it, said Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein.
We have no other choice because of a shortage of local teachers, he said after opening the joint Kuala Nerus Umno divisions Wanita, Youth and Puteri delegates conference here yesterday.
He said the move to hire foreign teachers was a temporary measure until the country could produce enough local teachers.
Hishammuddin said his officials would visit Tamil Nadu soon and he would be going to China.
If we wait for the NUTP to train the teachers, we would not have enough even by 2020, he said, lamenting that the NUTP had not
offered any solution.
He said the ministry had decided not to pinch language teachers from Chinese schools as those schools were also facing a shortage of teachers.
Asked on the duration of the foreigners service, Hishammuddin said it would be as long as the country requires them.
On English, Hishammuddin said a language training institute would be set up in Terengganu, with the help of renowned universities like Oxford, Cambridge and the University College of London.
He said the proposed institute, a reward for the people of Terengganu for voting in the Barisan Nasional state government at the last elections, would produce the best English-trained teachers in the country.
He said it would be recognised by top universities of the world, adding that he had visited Britain to get professors from Oxford, Cambridge and the University College of London to work with the institute.
The institute, he said, was in addition to a university to be set up in the state.