STARTING next year, imported English textbooks will be used in schools instead of locally produced ones as part of the Education Ministry’s reform, reported The Star.

The curriculum will be aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFRL), a guide developed by the Council of Europe to gauge foreign language proficiency.

“This is part of the ministry’s English reform to ensure students achieve proficiency levels aligned with international standards,” the daily quoted Deputy Education Minister P. Kamalanathan as saying.

The new textbooks will be used starting with the 2018 cohort of preschoolers, Year One and Two pupils, and Form One and Two students.

“The ministry will buy off-the-shelf books to cater to schools because locally produced books are not able to meet the new CEFRL levels,” said Kamalanathan.

He added that teachers were being trained and the books were already available in all schools.

Primary school pupils will use the Super Minds textbooks, while secondary school students will use MacMillan’s Pulse 2.

Checks by The Star found that the books were expected to be priced at between RM78 and RM135.

There are 40,000 government-hired English teachers nationwide.

National Union of the Teaching Profession secretary-general Harry Tan told the daily that currently, many of them were not trained in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), but were chosen by school heads to teach because they knew “a little more English” than their colleagues.

“It would be counterproductive to force these teachers to do the CEFRL training because English is not their forte to begin with.” – October 5, 2017.