Test staff headed abroad for language proficiency

Posted on 4 September 2011 - 08:19pm
Last updated on 4 September 2011 - 08:27pm

R. Nadeswaran

EXACTLY a year ago today, with a suitcase in one hand and a laptop in the other, I landed at Heathrow to start duties as this newspaper’s first foreign correspondent. But three weeks before my departure, there were dramas of sorts happening in Kuala Lumpur.
Having submitted an application for a foreign journalist’s working visa in early August together with a letter from the company chairman and a brief note on my academic qualifications, I received a reply, part of which read: “You have failed to provide documentary evidence that you are competent in English to the level required and I am therefore not satisfied that you meet the requirements of Paragraph 144(vi). I have therefore refused your application because I am not satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that you meet all of the requirements of the above paragraph(s) of the immigration rules.”
While friends and colleagues were having a laugh at my expense, it was no laughing matter. I had a choice – appeal against the order, which would take another 60 days, or reapply (another RM1,400 in fees enclosing “documentary evidence” of my competency in the English Language).
Perhaps it was my fault for assuming that the people at the Visa Section read the local newspapers and being presumptuous that the documents accompanying the application were sufficient.
A fresh application was made, this time with the originals of my (British) university scroll, the Book Prize awarded by the Anglia Ruskin University for best essay in the Student Law Journal, award certificates and a copy of PKFZ: The Untold Stories, which I had authored.
A week later, I was called to the High Commission to pick up my passport. The officer in charge and I had a good laugh and great chat about cricket and contemporary issues.
The most important thing I learnt was that when dealing with the Border Agency, every box has to be ticked and there should be no second guessing. Everything was sorted out and I now have a work visa valid until August 2013.
Looking back and having met and dealt with several Malaysian government servants in the course of my work over the past 12 months, my mind is always bugged by this question: “Would they be here if the same language competency requirements had to be met?”
If the same rules were applied to staff of Malaysian agencies based in the UK, it would certainly cause some problems and a lot of embarrassment. Because their applications for work visas are on a government-to-government basis, no questions are asked; but be assured that if they are asked to sit for English Language tests like Malaysian students are, some would fail.
This is because some cannot even hold a decent conversation in English. You may ask: “How do they carry out their duties with such shortcomings?”
They rely heavily on local staff and of course, there’s this “save-all” outfit called “PR agency”. Many Malaysian organisations have such agencies on retainer who handle communication and dealings with UK-based organisations and individuals.
And at least on one occasion, the emcee for a Malaysian function was a PR lady. Such PR services don’t come cheap either – between £6,000 (RM29,520) and £10,000 (RM49,200) a month.
That is why contentious and sometimes critical reports in the local media are never addressed with a rebuttal, however wrong these reports may be. The assumption is that “what we don’t know will not hurt us”.
I have always wondered how the country and trade is promoted without one-to-one, face-to-face dealings. How does one communicate with travel agencies or potential trading partners when there’s a language barrier? Having watched from afar how these PR people are pushed to the forefront to represent the country, saying anything more would be an exercise in futility.
However, it would have been some consolation if UK-based Malaysian civil servants had read the Evening Standard on Thursday. Its front-page heading read: “Olympics staff who can’t read or write”.
It reported that hundreds of staff who were employed at Europe’s largest shopping centre – the Westfield Stratford City – which is situated next to the main stadium, had be given “remedial tuition” because they could not even fill basic forms.
“The most difficult thing was the numbers who simply do not meet basic reading and writing criteria. They could not even fill forms without getting assistance,” the company’s director, John Burton, was quoted as saying.
So the Malaysians can take solace in the fact that even locals have a problem with English; but two wrongs don’t make a right! The bottom line is: Shouldn’t those being posted overseas be tested for their competence in the language of that country?
Shouldn’t those posted to Germany be sent to the Goethe Institute or those to France to Alliance Francaise for a language course? Or for that matter, the British Council in Kuala Lumpur will certainly help our civil servants brush up on their spoken English, at least.
R. Nadeswaran hopes someone from the dozens of Malaysian civil servants in the UK will respond to this column. He is theSun’s UK correspondent based in London and can be reached at: citizen-nades@thesundaily.com