By Teoh El Sen
June 9, 2011 | Free Malaysia Today
PETALING JAYA: Malaysians will be at a “slight disadvantage” in the competive global environment because of their poor command of English, said Jobstreet.com.
The online recruitment company recently placed Malaysia, behind Singapore and the Philippines in an English Language assessment test conducted in Asian countries.
“We are not that far off in the ranking but the third place does mean that we do have a slight disadvantage when we compete globally for businesses,” said JobStreet.com country manager Chook Yuh Yng.
Chook said there was a need to appreciate the importance of English proficiency as English is recognised as the international business language.
“Proficiency in English influences one’s ability to communicate effectively, and to articulate ideas and solutions well. It also affects self-confidencethe , ability to work in a team and excel, and so on,” said Chook.
“In a 2009 survey with employers, we found that lack of proficiency in English is also the one of the top three reasons for the unemployment rate among graduates,” said Chook.
She said that in a 2009 survey, 91% of companies surveyed said that English was their official business language.
She added that the lack of English proficiency was a “worrying trend” as the ability to communicate is among the five main criteria employers look for in job applicants.”
The JobStreet.com English language assessment test was conducted from November 2009 on 1.5 million workers in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. The test comprised 40 questions to evaluate an individual’s grasp of the language.
It had ranked Singaporeans first, Filipinos second, while Malaysians came in third. Thailand and Indonesia came in fourth and fifth respectively.
#1 by boh-liao on Thursday, 9 June 2011 - 6:48 pm
Not true 1, a guy of Indonesian descent became a dentist n was richly employed
Got super filthy rich 1, bot land cheap cheap n paid landscape artist big bucks CASH
Got $$ can move Bali 2 Selangor 1, no good England also OK 1 what
#2 by waterfrontcoolie on Thursday, 9 June 2011 - 10:25 pm
boh-liao, you have a good sense of humour but you are talking of a robber. He did not need any language to do his acts; so long that he could sign his name and then sell that piece of paper to his cronies. That was why, he had to rush back to the MB office to burn all those files!
#3 by wanderer on Friday, 10 June 2011 - 2:12 am
The whole purpose of lowering the standard of the English language in Malaysia was to allow the self-claimed Bumis to catch up economically with other races. These UMNO nationalist mud heads succeeded in lowering the standard of English but, at a tremendous cost!..they carried the joke too far!…uniformly, all students suffered. Now the whole nation is in darkness whose subjects once enjoyed, the high standard of English.
#4 by monsterball on Friday, 10 June 2011 - 4:13 am
English not important under UMNO B government.
Go view again how Govt. lawyer grilled Dr. Phontip on Teoh Beng Hock’s case and have a good laugh.
And almost all policemen…Govt clerks cannot speak one good English sentence at all.
The Govt. love to see Malaysians master Bahasa only.
They dressed up with false titles…become multi millionaires…..stealing millions…each one..most speak excellent English…as almost all are educated from Overseas….to come out and show Malaysians…they are special breed of Malaysians sent from Mars to govern is forever and do as they like.
The outcome of these hypocritical show have the after effect.
#5 by boh-liao on Friday, 10 June 2011 - 1:32 pm
As pointed by a number of commentators, UmnoB r hellbent on keeping d standard of English low in M’sia, esp amg Malays, while d filthy rich ruling class Malays send their kids 2 b educated in international schools n overseas
Dis is a plot 2 keep Malays English-blind n uninformed (but only fed on lies of Utusan M) n forever brainwashed by UmnoB
#6 by cemerlang on Friday, 10 June 2011 - 10:27 pm
If you get A + in your English, you should not have any problem with this language. Why is it that you refuse to speak English and when I talk English, your response is different as if you cannot understand English ? The marks are beautiful but the actual performance is far from beautiful. Yap. This is hypocrisy. This is fakeness. I cannot trust the results. The government cannot be so selfish. Only the powerful, the rich, the famous can bla bla bla in English with slang even. But the citizens I no understand you. Want to be first world but citizens no speaking English. ai yah. Wear li sad of this.
#7 by ktteokt on Saturday, 11 June 2011 - 10:09 am
Thanks to UMNO, our English standard has dropped to the pits!!!!!!