It is offering junior college students a taste of teaching and a chance to shadow expert teachers, in a bid to ensure a steady stream of instructors.

'There isn't a shortage (such) that we need to bring in foreign teachers,' Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education Masagos Zulkifli said on a visit to Tampines Junior College yesterday. But all the same, he said the ministry is hoping for a bigger pool of instructors.

There are now nearly 6,000 teachers who specialise in Mother Tongue languages. Of these, 4,000 teach Chinese, 1,200 Malay and 600 Tamil.

To bolster these numbers, the Education Ministry is eyeing students taking Mother Tongue language at the H2 level for the A levels.

It is especially targeting those who study these languages in greater depth in the language elective programmes (LEP).

Each year, about 250 sign up for the Chinese LEP, and 50 join the Malay equivalent.

The ministry is offering students a chance to go for talks on teaching as well as to try their hand in the classroom. It also plans to encourage them to apply for scholarships.

Mr Abdul Malek Ahmad, who teaches Malay at Tampines JC, said it was a good idea to catch potential teachers young.

'In the Malay LEP, there's a pool of students who already have the interest. The new initiatives are the catalyst to make them take up teaching,' he said.

The ministry also wants to raise the quality of Mother Tongue language teachers by increasing the number of Master Teachers. Master Teachers are experts in their subjects who coach other teachers.

Currently, there are only seven Chinese and one Malay language teacher in these positions. The long-term goal is to have 1 per cent of Mother Tongue language teachers become Master Teachers.