Sunday, September 09, 2012

oh no, not another blueprint....!

on tuesday, the education ministry will announce yet another education blueprint, to move towards the uncharted territory called world-class education.

amongst the elements of this transformation, drawing high calibre graduates to teach & awareness that students are better off being bilingual or trilingual, will be given emphasis. so, i found this statement rather odd.....

shouldn't those english teachers who are found to be low or non-proficient be asked to teach some other subjects, instead of flogging the proverbial dead mule? looks like our kids are going to be subjected to another round of trial-and-error education. solly, I no speak Ingrish.

this reminds me of a blog posting i read recently (read here) where a faulty landing gear of a new MAS plane was not fixed within the 30-day grace period. so far, MAS has not denied this allegation.

isn't this scary? we know what plagues the country, yet the people who can fix this aren't doing it? doesn't this give you the sinking feeling, or in aviation parlance, mayday, mayday?

8 comments:

Yvonne Foong said...

... because we don't have enough teachers to begin with. We can only do with what little we have. That's why we cannot just tell teachers with poor english to teach something else. Who will teach in English then? :P

kc said...

if we had a penny for every joke about our english teachers

doc said...

Yvonne,

if you say we don't have enough english teachers to begin with, isn't it because they never placed importance in it in the 1st place?

by the same argument, with so many private med schools now & without sufficient competent lecturers, are you surprised the med students aren't well-trained?

doc said...

KC,

we'd be millionaires?

The thumb in every pie said...

I have been staring at this comment box for the last half hour bcoz I honestly can't find words that could articulate exactly what has been running thru' my mind about YET ANOTHER change in our education system without sounding cynical. Sigh!

May our Living God guide the hands and minds of the architects of this blueprint. Amen.

doc said...

Andrea,

as ronan keating once sang, you say it best when you say nothing at all.

well, we shall read all about it in the press.

and may God save the country!!

Yvonne Foong said...

Yes, so we can only do with what little we have now - train teachers who are already bad in English. Malaysia does have people who are good in English, but they are either not teachers or not available for hire to teach in our public schools.

People who are good in English would rather teach at private institutions because it pays better, too. They also have more freedom and benefits.

We have a lot of excellent English writers in this country. But they are not teachers.

doc said...

Yvonne,

because english have been de-emphasised, training of english teachers & learning english took a backseat - that's where we are now.

whatever measures that are taken now, it'll take at least one generation to put things right.