English teachers not major in education is a problem

Sarawak's Welfare, Women and Family Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah points out that the current scenario in Sarawak often involves most English teachers who do not opt for English and some did not even major in education.

"Recently, the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) results were announced and out of 30, 000 students in Sarawak , only 76.84 per cent of them passed in their English subject, 11.27 per cent of them managed to get an A whereas 23.16 per cent of them failed in the subject.

"In 2013, however, only 85.8 per cent of students passed in their English SPM examination, 13.52 per cent of them got A's and 19.42 per cent of them failed in the subject," she said.

This will definitely be a problem in the near future as the Education Ministry had recently announced that students must pass in their English paper besides History and Bahasa Malaysia in order to get their SPM certificates. Changes in the language medium have also contributed to the challenges.