'Allow these docs to serve other segments'
Published on: Saturday, February 13, 2016
Kota Kinabalu: It is devastating for the 1,000 Malaysian trainee doctors who had to quit due to poor command of the English language, said Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Dr Alvin Ng, from Sunway University in Kuala Lumpur."This is so because the medical graduates have actually completed the two-year mandatory housemanship in public hospitals. Their ambition to become doctors to serve the nation has been blown to smithereens," he said.Dr Ng, however, opined that their inability to articulate well in English was not the end of the road for those affected doctors.
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"One way to go about it is to allow them to serve segments of the community that are not English-speaking. I feel that's all right. But at the same time, their level of English proficiency needs to be improved," he said when met on the sidelines of the recent Living Positively and 5G of Happiness Workshop organised by Befrienders Kota Kinabalu.In November last year, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak himself had said that Malaysian graduates often lose out in the job market as they lack confidence due to their poor command of the English language.Meanwhile, the Johor Government is engaging experts from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) to help improve English proficiency among students in schools in Johor.
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Many lauded the move, saying it was timely in view of the decline in the standard of English in the country. They said they hope the collaboration will help bring about positive results in the State.
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Mentri Besar Datuk Mohamed Khaled Nordin said Johoreans, especially youngsters, had no option but to master the language or else they would be left behind in the progress and development taking place in the State.Businesswoman Suhaila Imran, 44, said certain parties should stop politicising the teaching of English at schools as it would result in more harm than good for the country.Suhaila, who has a 10-year-old daughter studying at SK (P) Sultan here, said her daughter has no problems with the language as the family speaks English at home."I really pity pupils, especially those from the rural schools, who are struggling to speak English as the one hour of English lesson a week in school is not enough for them,' she said.She said she hopes that UTM would make teaching of English more interesting and fun at schools by focusing more on activities such as plays to improve the children's public speaking skills.Suhaila also suggested for schools to bring back the "English Speaking Week" like in the old days where the pupils would be fined for speaking other than English during the period.Sinar Harian journalist Siti Noor Sepee, 33, said she made the right decision to transfer her eight-year old daughter Adriana Sofea Amril to SK Medini in Iskandar Puteri from another school nearby in Gelang Patah."Her command of English has improved a lot as the school has a good mix of multi-racial pupils and most of them speak English,' she said.Siti Noor said prior to that, Adriana did not have confidence in speaking the language at her former school as most of her friends were Malays and they were comfortable speaking to each other in the language. "Apart from English, my daughter is also slowly picking up a little bit of Mandarin and Tamil from her Chinese and Indian friends," she added.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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