SINGAPORE : The Education Ministry has announced that any
student can do a third language in Chinese or Malay from next
year.
But a shortage of language teachers means that not all schools will
be able to offer this to interested students.
The Ministry recruits 2,000 teachers a year, and is also recruiting
language teachers from China.
Trishpal Kaur is among 25 non-Chinese students at Cedar Girls'
Secondary who've been studying Chinese as a 3rd language since the
start of this year.
Trishpal said: "I know how to do it, most of it, because I did it
from P1 to P4 so it's not that difficult for me. But still it's
quite time-consuming."
Nur Azizah, Student, Cedar Girls' Secondary, said: "Probably around
2 to 3 hours, takes me a very long time because I've to memorise
all the characters."
She intends to continue with this right up till Sec 4, where she
will take it at the GCE 'O' Levels.
In the past, only students with good results were allowed to study
Chinese as a third language.
Now, anyone with an interest can do so.
"We live in a multi-racial society and by learning the Chinese
language I will have a greater insight into the Chinese Language,"
said one student.
"It will help us when we go into the community to work. No one
should be stopped from learning something enriching that will
benefit others," said another.
Some schools intend to start from next year.
Susan Leong, Principal, Cedar Girls' Secondary School, said: "I
think we should offer the opportunity to our girls who are capable
since many of them are quite linguistically talented. Unfortunately
we do have some constraints in resources, because even when we
started this year, the number of pupils who qualified from Cedar's
is one of the largest in Singapore, over 30. And that formed only
one class and my teachers already told me, it was not easy to teach
such a large class since they have almost zero foundation in the
language, it was very challenging for them."
Schools are more than happy to run such classes if they can get the
teachers.
And the right ones will be able to enthuse students with almost no
foundation in the language.
This could tie in nicely with more teachers being given to
schools.
So more students knowing Chinese or Malay as a third language could
soon be a reality. - CNA