Deputy premier says will prod Education Ministry on Sarawak’s lack of Iban language teachers

KUCHING, Jan 25 — Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah today said he will ask the Ministry of Education (MoE) to address the critical shortage of Iban language teachers in both the primary and secondary schools in Sarawak.

He said based on the 2022/2023 academic session, there were 2,836 Iban language teachers, including 385 option teachers.

“For the secondary schools, there were 282 Iban language teachers and out of that total, only 63 were option Iban language option teachers,” he told reporters after the launch of the English-Iban Dictionary at the Batu Lintang Teacher Education Institute here.

He said the language is not only taught among the Iban students, but also students from other races in rural schools.

He said one of the proposals that he will make to the MoE is to relocate the Iban Language Study Centre at the Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) in Perak to a university in Sarawak.

Uggah claimed UPSI is facing a critical shortage of Iban language lecturers because many teachers who are qualified to teach the language in Sarawak are not willing to go to the university.

“This has resulted in the shortage of Iban language lecturers at UPSI,” he said, adding that he would propose to relocate the centre to Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas).

He also said he will talk to the Unimas management board on the possibility of setting up the Iban language centre.

“If we can have an Iban language course, then we can expect more qualified lecturers in the language to apply,” he said.

Uggah also said the state government is still studying a proposal to establish an Iban language institute to further develop the language.

“I think a lot of issues that we have to resolve, particularly in the development of Iban language, such as terminologies, updating the language into modern usage and other matters,” he said.

Uggah also said he is prepared to sponsor language experts to come up with a Mandarin-Iban Dictionary.

The English-Iban Dictionary is the work of Iban language lecturers from Rajang Teachers Training Institute (RTTI) in Bintangor and members of the Association For The Educational Development of Iban Language (AEDIL), under the supervision of RTTI director Dr Lambat Lindong.

The 698-page dictionary contains entries for 65,000 words.