MMTC - Revolutionizing the traditional music industry & empowering entrepreneurship
A bit of a background
More than a college for music teachers, the Malaysia Music Teachers Training College (MMTC) strives to be a li fe- ski l l col lege committed to improving soft skills and upscaling human capital in the creative arts industry, particularly in instruments retailing and teaching.
MMTC is the first vocational institution for creative arts in Sabah and Malaysia.
Apart from music and teaching skills, MMTC also teaches entrepreneurship skills.
We believe that by equipping our students with a wide range of enterprising skills, they will find success and employment opportunities everywhere and anywhere they wish to be.
In October 2015, MMTC, together with Music Mart & therockschool, as well as ECC Playschool Plus, under the parent company, Distinctone Sdn Bhd, were awarded two prestigious awards for brand development, rebranding, marketing and research.
Under the leadership of a charismatic husband and wife team, Mr. Peter Chua and Dr. Janet Lee, who are the CEO and Director of Distinctone Sdn Bhd respectively, MMTC continues to thrive, carrying with it a dream for the development, business and consumption of the creative arts industry.
After seven years of research, brand development and working together with the Performance Management Delivery Unit (PEMANDU, of the Prime Minister’s Department), MMTC was accepted as one of the Entry Point Projects under National Key Economic Area (NKEA) for music education under the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).
MMTC’s mission and vision are to take the perception of music as a business to a new front. It wants to make Malaysia the regional hub in Asia for music teaching accreditation, in creative art content and holistic early childhood development, preparing young children for academic learning.
Borneo Music Conservatory (BMC) Sdn Bhd
Under the ETP a research was conducted by BMC on how to improve the curriculum for the music teaching industry.
The study revealed that the music industry is actually a ‘sunrise industry’ as opposed to the general perception that it was stagnant, or at worse a sunset industry. It was being viewed negatively because of the lack of accreditation in the industry, as the syllabus and teaching methods are still traditional and largely unregulated. Current scenario Currently, the standard of music teaching and teachers are determined by the various examination bodies. They tested and graded based on entirely on their level of competence in reading musical notes and playing instruments.
The music teaching method is academically-based with emphasis wholly on notes-reading and instruments-playing, leaving no room for creativity. The rigid system quickly breeds boredom and frustration, sometimes as early as Grade 3. These same frustrated students soon become robotic and frustrated teachers and the vicious cycle continues to produce, more often than not, one-dimensional note-reading and instruments-playing ‘musicians’.
Because of the current music educators’ limited knowledge in music beyond notes-reading and instruments-playing, there has been a very high turnover in both the numbers of teachers teaching music as well as the students studying music. This scenario gives rise to parents’ impression that music learning is at best a leisure undertaking, and not its real potential as a career path.
In the conventional music schools, this lack of understanding is translated into the high rate of absenteeism in music classes, which is demoralising for the teaching staff and also troublesome as it means more time has to be wasted on replacement classes, etc. Because of this too, music teachers f ind it di f f icult to upgrade their skills and undergo exams.
Having observed this problem, MMTC sees the need to take action in order to transform and regulate the quality the supply chain of the musicteaching industry.