KUALA TERENGGANU: The cost to put 15,000 primary school teachers through a degree study programme will be fully borne by the government, said Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein.

Not only that, he said, the teachers selected for the programme would still receive their full monthly salaries during the four-year duration of the programme.

He said some 3,000 teachers would be chosen annually to undergo the programme, with the intake of the first batch to be done this November.

“It is an opportunity for the teachers to earn their first degree without having to study on a full-time basis,” he told reporters after opening a school headmasters convention here yesterday.

Hishammuddin added that under the ministry’s various study aid programmes, he targeted that by 2010, at least 50 per cent of primary school teachers would have degree qualification.

Some 7,000 primary school headmasters from throughout the country are attending the four-day convention.

Also present was Education director-general, Datuk Alimuddin Mohd Dom.

— Bernama