London, Jan 22 – The preliminary report by the Cambridge English Language Assessment has been positive on the level of proficiency in the language with regard to Malaysian students from the pre-school to pre-university level, says Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, here, Tuesday.
Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, was given a briefing on the results of the initial study done by Cambridge English Language Assessment under the Malaysia Cambridge Baseline Project, “Measuring the English Language Standard and Establishing an Evidence-based Baseline for Malaysian Schools”.
The briefing was given by the group’s assistant director (Assessments & Operations) Martin Robinson and Dr Hanan Khalifa, the head of Research & International Development.
Asked whether he was happy with the initial findings, Muhyiddin said: “It was a good initiative that had been taken. However, there is still room for improvement.”
Muhyiddin said the government had appointed Cambridge English Language Assessment to evaluate the teaching and learning of English in Malaysian schools to find out the students’ level of proficiency as some quarters felt it was not as good as before.
He said the Education Ministry, therefore, agreed to collaborate with Cambridge English to do the baseline study on the level of teaching and learning of the English Language in schools in Malaysia.
The aim, he said, was to benchmark their proficiency level against the English Framework Reference (EFR) which was the international-level yardstick.
Asked whether the findings would change the national education policy, Muhyiddin said the ministry was studying the baseline English proficiency level of Malaysian school students in order to re-evaluate the current practices and to review the curriculum.
He said the study by Cambridge English involving 31,000 students from 943 classrooms in 426 schools was carried out over the last several months.
“Just now, Cambridge English presented to me its initial report. The final report will be tabled in March next year.
According to Muhyiddin, Malaysia was the only country carrying out such a comprehensive study on the level of English proficiency of its school students.
“No other country has done that. I hope to announce the findings of the full report when it is completed. What is important is that the measures taken are to improve the national education system,” he said.
Muhyiddin said the report would be studied by a Malaysian body, the English Language Rating Council, comprising experts in the language and who were appointed to the council by him last year.
He said after studying the report, the council would make changes to the national education system based on the proposals (in the report) that were deemed good and appropriate.
On the teachers’ preparedness to teach the language based on their interest and knowledge, he said from the initial findings, they were qualified enough to teach the language at the primary school level.
Muhyiddin said teachers had also started to be trained for that purpose.
According to the study, 85 per cent of the students surveyed were keen to learn the language while 97 per cent of the teachers were interested to teach it.
Muhyiddin arrived here Monday for a three-day visit to the United Kingdom to attend the three-day World Education Forum 2014 beginning on Jan 20.
This morning, the deputy prime minister attended a breakfast meeting with members of the United Kingdom Umno Club led by its chairman, Ikmal Hazlan Ikmal Hisham.
– Bernama
