Education Ministry to study preparedness to implement compulsory pass in English for SPM

The Education Ministry is setting up indicators to determine whether the country is prepared to implement the condition of a compulsory pass in English Language in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination.

Deputy Education Minister Datuk P. Kamalanathan said the process involved getting feedback from the public and interested parties, including teachers.

"Meetings with language experts and stakeholders have also been held several times to gather information on how we can implement the condition," he told the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday.

He was replying a question from Datuk Abdul Manan Ismail (BN-Paya Besar) who wanted to know the progress on the proposed implementation of the compulsory pass in English Language in SPM.

It was planned to be implemented this year in line with the second wave of the National Education Development Plan.

However, the ministry postponed its implementation to give teachers and other related parties more time to get prepared.

Meanwhile, Kamalanathan said various initiatives were taken by the ministry to improve mastering of the English Language among teachers, like the Professional Development Programme for English Language Teachers (Pro-ELT), which had trained 16,000 teachers since 2012.

There is also the English Language Intervention programme, targeting the non-option English Language teachers, which had benefited 976 teachers, he added.