Teachers should prepare for IR 4.0 challenges — Maszlee

Teachers should always be prepared to face challenges presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0), said Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik.

He said they should be brave to make changes as well as to be highly creative and innovative in keeping up with the current technological growth.

“In this ICT (Information and Communications Technology)-rich environment, teachers should play their key role as agents of change. Likewise, the school management.

“Integrating and cultivating ICT at every opportunity in teaching and learning in the classroom can influence interest and ability to change the existing teaching and learning practices and bring them to a higher level,” he said when opening the 2019 Malaysian Teachers Festival here yesterday.

The text of his speech was read out by Education director-general Datuk Dr Amin Senin.

Maszlee said the fifth generation mobile technology, or 5G, was often talked about now although the technology would only be launched in the country in 2021 or 2022.

Hence, he said, teachers should be ready to optimise the 5G technology within the next three years by making the necessary preparations.

“This 5G technology, which offers faster data speed, will provide an opportunity for the people to carry out various economic activities more effectively, hence, giving added value to the standard of living, including in the education field,” he added.

Meanwhile, Amin told a media conference after the event that there was no shortage of Englishlanguage teachers in the country.

On the contrary, he said, the Education Ministry was facing a drop in the number of Englishoption teachers.

He said there was no shortage of English teachers because such vacancies can be filled with interim and non-option teachers.

He said this in response to a call by National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) secretarygeneral for the ministry to resolve the issue of shortage of Englishlanguage teachers instead of requiring teachers to sit for the Malaysian University English Test (MUET). - Bernama