KUCHING: The Sarawak education system is moving ahead with the emphasis on English and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects, says a state minister.
Sarawak Education, Innovation and Talent Development Minister Datuk Roland Sagah said the state was implementing the dual language programme (DLP) to teach Science and Mathematics in English in primary schools, besides developing STEM packages for students.
"These programmes are not something that will not bear fruit. They are also done by people with expertise who know the needs of the future. We are actually not stagnant as far as Sarawak is concerned, we are moving forward," he said.
He told reporters this after launching the Sarawak DLP training course for Year Three Science and Mathematics teachers here on Tuesday (Aug 9).
Sagah was asked to comment on Education Minister Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin's observation that the Malaysian education system was stagnant due to the unwillingness of stakeholders to make changes.
Radzi said on Monday (Aug 8) that other countries had gone past Malaysia in education because they kept making changes and improvements while Malaysia remained static.
Meanwhile, Sagah said over 1,000 primary school teachers in Sarawak had been trained under the state's DLP programme since it was introduced in 2019.
Unlike the national DLP programme, which allows schools the choice to teach Science and Mathematics in Bahasa Malaysia or English, he said Sarawak decided that all national primary schools in the state would use English.
"We want to make English more widely used by our students from an early age so that they can fit into the global environment in which English is used widely," he said.
Sagah said Years One and Two Science and Mathematics teachers were given DLP training in 2019 while the current four-day course was for Year Three teachers.
He said the training programme was designed by the Teachers Education Institute Batu Lintang Campus to meet Sarawak's education needs.
