SARAWAK teachers should not use their lack of proficiency in the English language as an excuse to delay the teaching of science and mathematics in English next year, said a teachers union. 

The Sarawak Teachers Union (STU) said teachers should improve themselves in the use of the language.

The union believes the policy should proceed, said STU president Macky Joseph.

“STU agrees that everyone needs to start somewhere,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

The debate over the issue erupted last week after Sarawak Education, Science and Technological Research Minister Michael Manyin said teachers who are not proficient in English should not be too worried about grammar or the Queen’s English, and to speak “Sarawak English”.

Manyin told some 600 teachers attending Sarawak English Language Education Symposium (SELES) 2019 in Sibu last Monday in Sarawak Malay to ‘gasak ajak’ (just do it).

Joseph said the union believes the 2,800 teachers involved “are sufficiently guided to teach Primary One pupils ... in English”.

He said the intensive training for the teachers therefore was “a wise action taken”.

Retired teacher Augustine Leong, however, said it was easier said than done.

Leong, who spent nearly all his teaching life in rural primary schools where pupils practically speak little or no English, said the task for those teachers who have a poor command of the language could be daunting in the beginning.

“But it is something that could be done. Like the proverbial saying, they will have to take the bull by the horns.”

Leong said the teachers who have to make the switch from Bahasa Malaysia to English might be under stress in the first two or three months.

“There might be a situation where the teachers might feel they are in an awkward situation trying to teach in a language they are poor in to a bunch of pupils who don’t speak it at all.

“But they (the teachers) should ask themselves, ‘Who are these pupils to judge whether they are good or bad?’”

Leong said after getting a hang of the situation, things will just get better and these teachers will find teaching the two subjects less stressful.

“In the beginning they will definitely find it stressful. But I don’t find that to be a problem in the long-run.

“It just takes time. It (the policy) is possible.”

Leong however said the state government need not worry too much on the teachers who are not proficient in the English language.

What the state government should worry more, he said, is the federal government in Putrajaya and another possible flip-flop on education policy.

Leong was referring to the federal government abandoning teaching science and maths in English in 2012.

The policy was started by Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 2003, at the end of his first stint as prime minister in a bid to improve proficiency in the language.

Malay nationalists then mounted a campaign against the policy and Dr Mahathir’s successor, Najib Razak caved into their demand.

The two subjects will be taught in English in 1,265 primary schools from the beginning of the new school year in January.

Chinese schools (SJKCs) are however exempted.

Sarawak, where English is an official language behind Bahasa Malaysia, became the first state to revert to the 2003 policy. – September 30, 2019.