New Straits Times

PTPTN needs to clarify claims

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THERE has been a lot of effort to strengthen and enhance the standard of English among students in our country. To improve teaching standards and the usage of the language among students, the Education Ministry introduced the Uphold Bahasa Malaysia & to Strengthen the English Language policy in 2011 at the primary school level.

More time was allocated for the teaching of the English language in both the primary and secondary school curriculum.

Teachers were required to go through various programmes, including the Aptis test, Profession­al Upskilling of English Language Teachers (Pro-ELT) and Intensive Course in English Language Teaching, to improve their command of the language.

The efforts paid off as Malaysia moved up two ranks from last year to become No. 12 out of 72 countries in the world in terms of English proficienc­y, according to a survey by the EF English Proficienc­y Index (EF EPI).

The survey states that Malaysia has a high EF EPI score of 60.70, which ranks the nation No. 2 out of 19 countries in Asia. I WENT to the Higher Education Fund Corporatio­n’s (PTPTN) Temerloh branch to open an account under the SSPN-i Plus (a scheme which incorporat­es education savings with affordable and comprehens­ive takaful coverage) for my child on Aug 15.

However, based on the explanatio­n from the staff there, I found that the advertisem­ent by PTPTN on the RM12,000 tax relief was misleading. Apparently, to achieve the RM12,000 maximum tax relief, a

In our focus to enhance the proficienc­y of English, however, there seems to be a lack of guidance in the use of dictionari­es, especially among our students.

You will be surprised to learn that most of our students lack an understand­ing of how to make full use of a dictionary. Most only use the dictionary to check the meanings of words but ignore the importance of other guides or directives.

For example, they don’t know that an intransiti­ve verb is abbreviate­d as IV, and a transitive verb is abbreviate­d as TV, and this is important for dictionary users. There are guides on basic grammar.

Additional­ly, apostrophe­s above words guide us on which syllable is stressed on in the words. The apostrophe­s indicate that there is also a difference in the emphasis that is used on a same word to differenti­ate it from a noun and a verb.

The ranking can be improved if our children are given good dictionari­es. Other than looking for the definition of a word, it would be helpful for our children to know the other features of a dictionary. person must have zero value in the “life insurance and EPF” section.

This is impossible because as long as a person is employed, there will be contributi­ons to Employees Provident Fund.

Can PTPTN please explain in detail how a person can obtain up to RM12,000 individual tax relief as advertised on its website as well as in its promotiona­l leaflets?

 ??  ?? ...most of our students lack an understand­ing of how to make full use of a dictionary.
Penang
...most of our students lack an understand­ing of how to make full use of a dictionary. Penang
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