Disclose successes of RM270m English teacher-training gig, DAP tells Putrajaya

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 — The Education Ministry should disclose the achievements of its RM270 million English teacher training programme and reveal if it plans to continue with the initiative once it ends this year, DAP lawmaker Zairil Khir Johari demanded today.

The Bukit Bendera MP insisted that the amount of money spent for the programme was “absurd”, particularly as feedback from those involved indicated that they had not learned much from the training.

In “most cases”, he alleged, the teachers were only given three to four hours of training a month from the 360 mentors provided by the three external consultant groups hired by the government.

“Considering the absurd amount of public money spent, the MOE has a responsibility to disclose the results of the programme thus far,” he said in a statement here, referring to the ministry by its English initials.

“Malaysians deserves to know what improvements in the quality of English amongst our schoolteachers have been achieved since the mentoring began in 2011.”

Zairil said the ministry should also declare if it intended to continue with the three-year programme, or was prepared to shoulder the responsibility of having possible squandered RM270 million of public funds for an inefficient initiative.

“How effective is MOE’s RM270 million English mentoring programme?” he pointed out.

Under the programme, the government had commissioned three external consultancy firms — British Council, Brighton Education Group and SMR HR Group — to provide a total of 360 native English-speaking mentors in order to improve the teaching of English in selected schools in Malaysia.

At RM270 million for the three-year programme, this amounted to RM250,000 a year or almost RM21,000 a month to hire each foreign mentor, Zairil said.

Questioning the efficiency of the programme, the lawmaker cited an advertisement taken out for mentors by Nord Anglia Education, the company partnering with Brighton Education Group, one of the firmed hired by the ministry for the programme.

According to advertisement accessible at http://www.justjobs.co.uk/job_details.aspx?ad=68342, Zairil noted that it states that “Nord Anglia Education in association with Brighton Education Group is looking for English Language Teaching Consultants (ELTC) to improve English language and literacy teaching in clusters of Malaysian government primary schools.”

The advert further explains that “the ELTCs will be fluent English speakers and have a minimum of three years teaching experience in primary or kindergarten. Additional ESOL qualification and international experience would be an advantage”, he added.

“As for the job’s benefits, it is described as an ‘excellent ex-pat package including housing/transport/annual flight’, where ‘successful applicants will enjoy … a generous international package, based upon qualifications and experience….’,” Zairil said, quoting from the advertisement.

The “excellent” and “generous” employment package described there, he said, is consistent with the RM270 million bill charged to taxpayers here for the programme.

“But is the government really getting their money’s worth when the so-called English experts only require a minimum of three years’ teaching experience?

“For the excessive amount of money being spent, surely only experienced senior English teachers should be recruited instead?” he asked.

Zairil drew comparisons with the Japan government’s initiative to train its own English teachers, pointing out that it had managed to run a successful programme since 1978 without the use of foreign consultants.

Now the largest programme of its kind in the world, the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme attracts English-speaking university graduates from all over the world to work as English teachers in Japanese schools, he said.

Unlike in Malaysia, Zairil said the Japanese government did not outsource the training to consultants but runs it as a collaboration between its Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, in cooperation with the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations.

“Interested applicants are required to apply directly through their local Japanese embassies or consulates worldwide,” he said.

“Meanwhile, all relevant information is publicly available online. For example, the starting salary for English teachers begins at ¥275,000 or roughly US$2,800 a month, a modest sum considering that Japan is one of the most expensive countries to live in,” he pointed out.

Putrajaya recently earned flak from its critics when it was recently revealed that it had paid a staggering RM20 million to another foreign consultancy — McKinsey & Co — to draw up the government’s National Education Blueprint (NEB).

DAP federal lawmaker Ong Kian Ming, when weighing in on the controversy, said the government had unnecessarily squandered taxpayers monies by hiring McKinsey & Co, pointing out that the firm’s staff are not education specialists but merely general management consultants.

He said the project management office (PMO) could have asked other “high-powered” individuals from the Education Ministry and the government’s efficiency unit Pemandu to prepare the blueprint, instead of hiring external consultants.

“Surely the PMO could have utilised its many capable resources within the Ministry and Pemandu to prepare this National Education Blueprint?

“Why waste RM20 million on employing expensive management consultants?” the Serdang MP asked in a recent statement.

The National Education Blueprint, which was launched by Muhyiddin on September 6 this year, is a 15-year roadmap for the country’s education system that will cover the years from 2013 to 2025.

The government will take stock of the NEB’s progress at the milestone years of 2015, 2020 and 2025.

One of the government’s aims in the NEB is to propel Malaysia to the top third tier in international education rankings in 15 years’ time, based on the results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).