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Grouping
pushes English as second language
Worry over poor quality of teaching
The Asean
decision to push English as a second language in member states has
caused concern to officials accompanying the Prime Minister, Hun Sen to
the weekend informal summit here.
Their concern is the limitation in
the quality of education available in Cambodia.
Apart from a handful of
institutions providing qualified English teachers, the rest are using
semiliterate locals and backpackers without teaching background as
instructors.
Child molesters and drug addicts are
among them.
An official said that there was great
demand for English classes, but the Asean decision was expected to
increase that demand.
"This means, we have to regulate the
teaching of English to ensure that the courses are organised and run by
professionals," he added.
The Singapore Prime Minster, Goh Chok
Tong said that the leaders accepted that English was key for acquiring
information technology.
"Unless we are able to master
English, we will not be able to get our population to use IT and take
advantage of the new economy," said Goh.
The summit also agreed to the
trans-Asian railway that will link Singapore with Kunming in the in the
southern Chinese province of Yunnan, running through Malaysia, Thailand,
Cambodia and Vietnam.
The project, costing about US$2.5
billion, would also provide feeder lines to Vientiane, the port of Bung
Anh in Vietnam and Yangon.
The 5,500- kilometer link is
targeted for completion in 2006 and Asean leaders expected to source
founds from China and Japan.
The summit saw a renewed attempt to
change the grouping's policy of noninterference in the internal affairs
of member states, supporters noting the policy was hampering Asean.
"Asean will become irrelevant if it
continues with this Policy," insisted Jusuf Wanandi, who heads the
Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, citing
Indonesia as a case for intervention.
"If Indonesia goes down the drain,
the entire Asean will go down the drain.
"How can you not comment on the
internal affairs of Indonesia," he reasoned.
The center was among the think tanks that
think different from the Asean leadership.
But Indonesia, in the midst of economic,
political and sectarian crisis, invited Asean to look at the problems.
Presidential spokesman, Wimar Witoelar declared
"it is not something we will sweep under the carpet.
"The problems are known to
each other so what we are going to do is to legitimize these concerns so
they are integrated into Asean moving together."
The summit also decided to
study a plan for institutionalizing the current Asean plus. Three arrangement
including Japan, South Korea and China.
The study to create a
powerful East Asian political and trading bloc would be tabled at next
year's Asean summit in Bandar Seri Begawan.
The plan is to merge
the Asean market of 500 million with the two billion in the three Asian
'tigers'.
Insiders say that if
the plan takes off, it will take the shape of the East Asian Economic
Caucus once suggested by Malaysia and rejected by the United States, a
major market for the region.
The US has the
North American Free Trade Area, which is being extended to South
America, and was unlikely to oppose the plan, according to Asean
officials.
Malaysia's International
Trade Minister, Rafidah Aziz defended an exception clause in the Asean
free trade pact which will initially benefit Malaysia's auto industry.
Thailand, most disadvantaged
by the exception, "did not mind" Malaysia's deferment in the
lowering of tariff cuts for automotive products, she said.
The Common Effective
Preferential Tariff protocol gives members room to delay tariff cuts in
the regional free trade area if they faced "real problems."
But Rafidah said it would have
little effect on the accord itself.
"We
realizes that along the
way, there will be problems, faced by some countries that require them
to delay or suspend for a time the cutting of tariffs of some
products," she told reporters.
Rafidah blamed the 1997 Asian
crisis for causing a "problem with the auto industry"
prompting Kuala Lumpur to seek a two-year deferment of the
original deadline to bring tariffs down to zero to five percent by
2003. |
