Ministry encourages staff to take English courses

KUALA LUMPUR: Staff and officials from the Education Ministry have been taking English courses to improve their proficiency.

Education director-general Datuk Dr Amin Senin says this is being carried out on its own initiative and is not new.

“We even encourage our officials to attend English language courses at the Teacher Education Institutes. The ministry will continuously support their efforts,” he said after launching the fourth Interna­tional Conference on Teacher Learn­ing and Development here yesterday.

Dr Amin was responding to questions on whether the ministry would follow in the footsteps of the police force after Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Mohamad Fuzi Harun said it had planned intensive English courses for officers and other personnel.

On the conference, Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik said there was a need to reform formal education.

“This is to enable new forms of learning that are needed to tackle complex global changes.

“It is not enough anymore to have students who are active in their learning; any task they perform as a part of their learning process must be carefully formulated so that it is meaningful and educationally useful,” he said in a keynote speech read out by Dr Amin.

“There is a need to redefine the role of teachers,” Dr Maszlee said, adding that “different forms of education are required in order to produce future employees”.