KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 12 — The number of national secondary schools (SMK) that teach Mandarin as an official main subject during school hours have increased to 83 this year, Deputy Education Minister Chong Sin Woon has said.
Chong said he has successfully pushed for a majority of SMK schools with a large ethnic Chinese student population to teach Mandarin during school hours, instead of as an elective subject after school, vernacular paper Sin Chew Daily reported.
Chong, who assumed his post in 2015, noted that Mandarin was already being taught during school hours in 54 out of the then 91 SMKs where over half of its students were ethnic Chinese in 2016.
“In 2017, there are 95 SMK schools where the Chinese account for over half, 83 among them have incorporated it as a formal subject, only the remaining 12 are still having it as a mother-tongue class, so we have already successfully caused a majority of predominantly-Chinese SMKs incorporate Mandarin as a formal subject,” he was quoted saying.
