extracted from straits times forum.
RECENTLY, my parents tried to hire a maid for the family. The maid
was new to the job, with no experience working here.
She had to sit for a written English test at the Ministry of
Manpower, which she attempted nine times but failed.
She was then not allowed to work in Singapore and was sent back to
Indonesia - just because she failed her test as she was unable to
understand some words.
As a result, my parents had to go through all the trouble of
selecting another maid.
What is the actual purpose of having tests like this? Is it not
sufficient to just understand some simple words for
conversation?
Is it really necessary for the maids to be able to read a lot of
English words? So long as they are able to converse in English, why
do they even need to read up that much?
When my parents interviewed her in English, she was able to
understand them and was also able to show her understanding of
English in her answers.
The only problem was that her ability to read English words was
limited. And because of that, she failed her test.
Are maids here to work as maids or as clerks? They could slowly
learn how to read while working for the family.
Another thing - if there is no language barrier between the family
and the maid, why should the maid not be hired?
In our case, being a Malay family, we would have had no problems
conversing with her in Malay or Bahasa Indonesia.
Jefferey Loh Ridwan Loh
