KUALA LUMPUR: The National Union of the Teaching Profession welcomed the abolishment of the Competency Level Assessment or PTK exam for civil servants.
Its secretary-general, Loke Yim Phang, was also happy with the rewards allocated for excellent schools and teachers.
On the employment of native English speakers to teach English, she said the 375 teachers should be in Malaysia for five years.
National Council of Parent-Teacher Associations president, associate professor Datuk Mohd Ali Hassan, gave the thumbs up to the development of religious and vernacular schools and hoped the allocations would be fair.
Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia chairman Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim welcomed the budget and hoped that the government would stick to its plans.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said the budget had set high targets for the Education and Higher Education Ministries to create world-class students with good thinking skills, creativity and innovation.
The Education Ministry will receive RM29.3 billion while RM10.2 billion will go to the Higher Education Ministry.
Najib said the most important asset of a nation was its human capital.
To improve learning institutions, RM6.4 billion will be set aside to build and upgrade schools, hostels and its facilities, and uphold the status of the teaching profession.
A further RM213 million will be given as a reward to high-performance schools, including its principals, head teachers and excellent teachers.
Religious, vernacular, missionary and government-assisted schools will receive RM250 million.
The government will also spend RM213 million to hire 375 native-speaking teachers from the United Kingdom and Australia to improve the standard of English locally, and streamline the standard curriculum of primary schools.
As for preschools, the government will hire 800 preschool graduate teachers and start around 1,700 new classes by the end of next year.
In higher education, the number of academics with PhD will be increased to 75 per cent in research universities and 60 per cent in other public universities with an allocation of RM20 million.
Other measures include creating promotion opportunities for lecturers in public universities and intensifying vocational training.
A corporation called Talent Corp will be set up under the Prime Minister's Department early next year to increase the number of talented and quality workforce in the domestic market, Najib said.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Khaled Nordin said the budget focused on research and development which would encourage academics to compete globally.
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