KOTA BARU: It’s back to school again for varsity lecturers to brush up on their English. Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed has ordered it as part of the government’s efforts to strengthen English proficiency at university level. He said his ministry was concerned about the level of English mastery among public university students. This has been attributed to the lack of proficiency of their lecturers.

Mustapa said preliminary findings of a recent ministry study found that the level of command among students and lecturers had to be improved to produce graduates capable of meeting the challenges of a highly competitive global environment. "Since lecturers are the ones teaching and influencing the students, they need to be equally comfortable speaking in the medium. This is important since mathematics and science courses are already being taught in English.

"In general, we find that the level of proficiency among lecturers is satisfactory, but there are those whose mastery is sub-par. We want to improve it so that all lecturers will be equally proficient," he said yesterday. He said a study showed that varsity students from urban backgrounds were more conversant in English compared to those from rural areas.

"So, it’s not really fair for rural students when they go into the job market and find that they cannot get good jobs because of their weak command of English."

** Setuju sangat-sangat.