Uggah: Moving Iban language centre from Perak to Unimas proposed to address teacher shortage

KUCHING (Jan 25): A proposal will be made to the Ministry of Education (MoE) to move the Iban Language Study Centre from Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) in Perak to Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas).

Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said this is necessary to address the critical shortage of Iban language teachers for both primary and secondary schools in the state.

He explained many teachers able to teach the language in Sarawak are unwilling to further enhance their teaching skills at UPSI due to the distance and family constraints.

“Currently, the higher education centres in Malaysia that have and still offer Iban language courses are the Rajang Campus Teacher Education Institute, Sarawak Campus Teacher Education Institute, Miri, and UPSI in Tanjung Malim, Perak,” he said after launching the English-Iban Dictionary at the Batu Lintang Teacher Education Institute here today.

“This has resulted in the shortage of Iban language lecturers at UPSI. If we can have an Iban language course, then we can expect more qualified lecturers in the language to apply.

“The Iban language teachers who graduated from the higher education centre play an important role in the future, especially as a driving force for the progress of the Iban language itself.

“Therefore, I sincerely hope that the recruitment and offering of Iban language programmes at these institutions will continue every year, to meet the needs of Iban language teachers who are still insufficient,” he said.

Uggah pointed out Iban language is not only taught to Iban students, but also those from other communities in rural schools.

He pointed out that for the 2022/2023 academic year, 2,836 teachers are teaching Iban language in primary schools but only 365 are ‘option’ teachers.

‘Option’ teachers are those who have undergone training at teacher training colleges to teach particular subjects.

“For secondary schools, there are 282 Iban language teachers and out of that total, only 63 are ‘option’ Iban language teachers,” he said, adding he will discuss the possibility of setting up the Iban language centre with Unimas.

On whether there are plans to standardise the English-Iban dictionary in schools and institutions, he said the state government wants to resolve outstanding issues first, particularly in the development of the Iban language, such as terminologies, updating the language into modern usage, and other matters.

“We need to keep the Iban language updated with the current development and technology. Because there are words that need translation for example terminologies like carbon trading, artificial intelligence.

“So, this is up to them to keep up, otherwise it will lose its relevance,” he added.

Uggah added he is prepared to fund language experts to come up with a Chinese-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.

Among those present were former deputy chief minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Alfred Jabu Numpang, Pakan assemblyman Tan Sri William Mawan Ikom, and IPG Batu Lintang Campus director Abang Ismail Abang Julhi.