A new way to learn English

PUTRAJAYA: The Education Ministry will introduce the Cambridge Accessible Tests (CATs) programme to help students in rural areas improve their English proficiency.

Its minister, Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid, said CATs was a supplementary way to learn English online.

“Our working committee will run the pilot project in the next six months. It will involve about 40 primary and secondary schools.

“Our focus is on helping students in rural schools improve their English, as most of them are weak in this subject and have little exposure to the language.

“The design for CATs is ready, but it will be implemented by year’s end so that the committee could identify the schools for this pilot project, and see its effectiveness,” he said at the English Language Education Implementation Strategy Towards Students’ Proficiency event yesterday.

Mahdzir said the new online programme would be fully implemented in all rural schools within one to two years.

He said the committee, led by Education director-general Tan Sri Dr Khair Mohamed Yusof, would monitor the implementation of CATs, which was developed in cooperation with Cambridge Malaysian Education and Development Trust.

“The teachers will monitor the students’ CATs performance. The teachers will be sent to English language training centres to undergo training.”

The ministry’s English Language Teaching Centre director Dr Mohamed Abu Bakar said students could learn English via CATs during and after school.

“CATs feature nine levels of English language proficiency at the primary and secondary school levels. When pupils have completed the primary school levels, they will continue to the secondary school level.”

Mohamed said the ministry would work with state education departments to identify which schools would pilot the programme.