He urged school-leavers interested in teaching to take up art, music or design as their elective subjects when they enroll at the Teachers’ Training Institute.
Kamalanathan said the three subjects were critical subjects. Many teachers, especially those in Tamil- and Chinese-medium schools, were not keen in teaching these subjects, he said.
“Based on last year’s projections, we require 380 teachers to teach these subjects in SJKT (Tamil schools) but we have not received any application for music, design and physical education subjects,” he said.
Students gave the excuse that these subjects offered them little prospect of advancement, besides having little interest or no proficiency in the field, he told reports at an education carnival.
Kamalanathan said the carnival, to be held at seven locations from today until March 27, was aimed at providing information on higher studies available at public institutions and universities.
Among educational agencies participating in the carnival are the Student Admission Management Division, polytechnics, teacher training institutes, National Youth Skills Institute, community colleges and industrial training institutes.
The carnival will be held at Sultan Abdul Halim Teacher Education Campus, Sungai Petani, today; Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Polytechnic, Shah Alam, on Sunday; Temerloh IKBN (March 13); Penang Free School (March 19); Ungku Omar Polytechnic, Ipoh (March 20); SMK Medini, Nusajaya Johor Baru (March 26); and Raja Melewar Teacher Education Campus, Seremban (March 27).
– BERNAMA