The government will introduce a new English language curriculum next year to strengthen the command of the language among students, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said.

Muhyiddin, who is the education minister, said the curriculum was ready and had been implemented as a pioneer project with good results so far.

NONE "We want to enhance the command of English among students through the use of appropriate approach. The curriculum will be introduced next year, starting with Year 1 pupils.

"The change involves the language art and grammar components with focus on fun learning as well as the ability converse in standard English, with emphasis on pronunciation and phonics," he said.

He was speaking to reporters after attending the award presentation for students who excelled in the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah and Penilaian Menengah Rendah in Besut today.

Muhyiddin said for the purpose of implementing the new curriculum, the government would employ 365 English language teachers or master teachers from abroad, to be posted in several zones throughout the country where they would teach the local English language teachers.

"We believe that by doing this, we can improve on the teaching and learning of the language in the wake of the move to scrap the policy of teaching Science and Mathematics in English," he said.

The government was also planning to re-employ retired teachers who were good in English to help teach the subject, he added.

Not meant to create elitist schools

On the high-performance school (HPS) programme, Muhyiddin said the ministry had never discriminated schools in the country.

"The HPS is not aimed at creating elitist schools. It is to recognise the performance of schools and to set the benchmark for others to emulate. This is to encourage more schools to perform better," he said.

He also said that the ministry was planning to introduce the excellent school programme.

"In the long term, all schools would be turn into excellent schools; so there won't be anymore need to fight for places in fully boarding schools as the existing ones are already categorised as excellent," he said.

Muhyiddin said the ministry would also implement programmes to improve on the performance of schools this year to ensure as many schools could be categorised as excellent.

"Even if they are unable to reach the level required to be in the excellent school category, there will definitely be some improvement," he said.

Earlier Muhyiddin announced an allocation of RM200,000 to two excellent schools in Besut namely Sekolah Menengah Imtiaz and Sekolah Rendah Tengku Mahmud.

- Bernama