KUCHING, Nov 12 — The Sarawak government will set up a committee to monitor the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English in Primary One classes next year, state Education, Science and Technological Research Minister Datuk Seri Michael Manyin said today.

He said the committee will consist of representatives from the state ministry, relevant federal government agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

“The committee will detect any problem as quickly as possible so that remedial actions can be taken early.

“We will give six months or even one year for the committee to monitor the progress of the teaching of science and mathematics in English,” he told reporters after his wind-up speech in the state legislative assembly here.

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Manyin said the state government does not want the teaching in English to fail like the dual language programme policy.

He said under the dual language programme, teachers are given the option to teach science and mathematics either in English or Bahasa Malaysia.

“But most of the teachers prefer to choose Bahasa Malaysia,” he said.

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Manyin said the state has prepared sufficiently to make the switch a success, including providing training to the 2,853 primary school science and mathematics teachers and resource materials in English on both subjects.

“The textbooks and workbooks are now ready and will be distributed to all schools by the end of this month.

“In addition, we are also producing videos of experienced teachers teaching science and mathematics in English and these videos will be distributed to all schools as supplementary resources,” he said.