The politician making comments in this very inaccurate news article has no idea what the project was about, how the project worked or the positive aims of the project, in short he tries to talk like an expert while not knowing anything. If Malaysians want to question where there taxes are wasted they need only look at this man. He ignores the fact that the schools in Malaysia are awash with English language teachers but many of those teachers barely scrape through as pre -intermediate or intermediate levels. How many primary schools simply give the English language classes to the art teacher to cover? They have a quirky phrase, they call these teachers non-options teachers. Imagine full classes being taught an international language by an art or history teacher whom can barely read English? The actual aims of the project in layman's terms is very clear. Get into classes alongside teachers, demo language teaching methodologies, train those teachers to adopt and use international accepted teaching methodologies, train those teachers to design additional teaching materials and supplement every lesson. Enable those pupils to actually use English meaningfully rather than just copying and writing words, Train many of those teachers to actually meaningfully use English themselves. The evidence was clear, Many but of course not all English teachers had been allowed to graduate from teacher training colleges with barely any professional or meaningful ability at using English let alone actually teaching the language. Remote primary schools were often targeted which meant international trainers had to live in remote locations and often travel long distances to visit each school and carry out training. None of the international trainers ever received a monthly income anywhere near the amount falsely claimed in this article, the general monthly pay was around 7,500 plus a contribution towards housing rent, the remainder of the monthly fee being kept by the employers. The politician claimed it would have been cheaper to put these teachers onto a TESOL course, again his understanding of TESOL or CELTA is very evident, these courses are basic ESL teacher preparation certificates, the result is not a qualified English teacher but rather an individual that might given time develop and move forward to become reasonable competent at "ESL" teaching. Hardly the requirements for a state school curriculum English teacher? He ignores the fact that many of these teachers have already attended a teacher training college.
Put the shoe on the other foot, if Malaysian professionals were asked to travel to the other side of the planet to work in another country and help that countries teachers master and properly teach a vital global communication tool, they would expect a decent months pay. In fact trainers stayed in Malaysia, spent in the economy in Malaysia and contributed very positively towards better teaching in state schools.
So where does the project have loopholes? Rather than hire agencies to recruit and manage trainers, the Moe should have recruited and managed the trainers, then the monthly fee would have actually gone to the trainers rather than just a third of it. My understanding is that the British Council took a very professional approach towards the project, Brighton Education likewise. In comparison SMR put the whole project under the control of Michael Hughes, a person whom often described himself as a master trainer ( which he is not ) yet he does not have any viable people management skills, project planning and management skills, teaching qualifications etc. In fact he arrived in Malaysia to be a trainer and did not last long at this job. The real questions are, who appointed this sort of person to receive a huge monthly payment from the Malaysian taxpayer? When alarm bells were sounded about his reckless unprofessional style of management, the employer placed him under an umbrella of protection. A google search with his name, SMR Malaysia will throw up many enlightening online articles about this man. If politicians want to point out any weaknesses in the project they simply need to look at the aforementioned person and ask ' How can this man draw a huge monthly salary and manage a multi million project?" He simply is not qualified to do so, in fact he is not really qualified at anything useful. Was he the required management face , if so, the choice was incredibly poor.
The aims of the English teacher training project were true and sound, the methodology for in house constructive teacher training has attracted the attention of other nations, the concept is a leader not a failure. Yes as mentioned here, questions can be asked about the choice of project managers or where did the bulk of the money go if it was not paid as an ex pat package to trainers? Equally, questions can be asked about the English language level of state school teachers that had been through a teacher college?
The truth is obvious, Most, Malaysian state school English teachers need further training as they were not properly trained before. This can be corrected and the project took major steps to address this problem.