20,000 English language teachers to be retrained

The 20,000 existing English language teachers will be retrained this year to improve their mastery of English, said Second Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh. He said 9,000 teachers would be trained initially next month and the rest from time to time. "This number has increased from only 5,000 last year so that the focus being given by the teachers is easily understood by the students and, subsequently, a good level of the language usage can be achieved," he told a media conference after the introduction of 100 Fulbright English Teaching Assistants from well-known universities in the United States, here, today. He said this was also in response to the government's call under the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 that hoped to increase the usage of the language in education. The ministry also expected 20,000 teachers to be similarly retrained next year, he added. On the Fulbright programme, Idris said, the prospective teachers from the US would serve for 10 months at primary and secondary schools in six states, namely Terengganu, Johor, Pahang, Perak, Sabah and Sarawak. Besides assisting the English language teachers in the class, they would also be doing extra curriculum activities to be conducted in English, such as the 'English camp'.