Wanita Gerakan has hailed the government’s decision to introduce basic Mandarin and Tamil lessons in all Tabika Perpaduan nationwide from next year, describing it as a positive move for the growth of the two languages and in the interest of our younger generation.

Wanita Gerakan deputy chief Ng Siew Lai said it was also timely and in line with global changes that our young kids learn to read, write and converse in simple Mandarin and Tamil.

Ng said it was important for our younger generation to be strong in languages so that when they grew up, they would have the competitive edge when compared with their counterparts in other countries.

“However, the government must ensure the availability of more quality language teachers in order to provide excellent education to our students,” she said in a statement.

Ng said giving regular training to our teachers and recruiting good and quality teachers from overseas, especially specialists in languages, would help tremendously.

“This move by the National Unity and National Integration Department will also attract non-Chinese and non-Indians to learn Chinese and Tamil, enhance national unity as well as increase their communication level in our multi-racial society,” she added.

She said it was important that Malaysia produces students who have good entrepreneurial skills, are marketable, good in problems-solving and can easily find jobs.

Department director-general Datuk Azman Amin Hassan said on Sunday that a private company had been engaged to create a software application to enable both vernacular languages to be taught to the 42,000-odd pre-schoolers in the country.