Another 119 S’wak schools approved for programme
KUCHING: The Ministry of Education has approved 119 schools in Sarawak to conduct the Dual Language Programme ( DLP) this year, bringing the total of DLP schools in the state to 186.
Welfare, Women and Community Wellbeing Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah explained that out of the total, 47 were secondary schools while 72 were primary schools.
“The programme is implemented where there is demand. We don’t want the parents to complain.
“There are criteria to be fulfilled if a school is seeking approval to run DLP — the parents want it to be implemented, the school is ready with its human resources, and the school’s mastery of Bahasa Melayu must be on par or better than the national average.
“There is need to plan ahead in order to conduct DLP,” she told reporters at her office yesterday.
She was responding to a news report on Monday that there was need to have more schools involved in DLP throughout the state.
Fatimah further explained that in June last year, the state Education Department had
The programme is implemented where there is demand. We don’t want the parents to complain. Datuk Fatimah Abdullah, Welfare, Women and Community Wellbeing Minister
submitted the first batch of 54 nominated schools, out of which 41 were approved.
The second batch of 78 schools was submitted in September and all were approved as DLP schools for this year.
On a related matter, Fatimah disclosed that the state was also embarking on an English mastery programme at the preschool level.
“This shows how serious the state is when it comes to achieving our objectives.
“We want to train the teachers teaching English at preschools through two modules, namely phonetics and fun learning.
“It is important to master English at all levels, starting from preschool level.
“Some preschool teachers are not proficient in English, so we want to start from them. They should want to improve their mastery in English so that they can teach the children. The foundation must be laid first,” she said.