We would like to address the argument for MBMMBI by Mohd Solihan Badri from the Corporate Communications Unit of the Education Ministry ("Plan will boost BM, English" -- NST, Oct 11).
The problem is the deterioration of English language and not Bahasa Malaysia (BM).
The language to propel us forward in terms of science and technology is English. The main medium of instruction in national schools will still be BM.
At present, the syllabus provides that 60 per cent of subject hours in primary schools and 53 per cent in secondary schools (science stream) retain BM as the medium of instruction.
BM is also the official language for assembly and correspondence.
The option to uphold PPSMI is protected under Article 152 of the Federal Constitution, which ensures the freedom to teach and learn in other languages, including English.
In addition, the Education Act 1996 supports that "pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents".
The Education Act 1996 also states that "and whereas the purpose of education is to enable the Malaysian society to have a command of knowledge, skills and values necessary in a world that is highly competitive and globalised, arising from the impact of rapid development in science, technology and information".
If we want to achieve a skilled workforce to fill 3.3 million jobs that will be created as the government restructures the economy under the ETP, then we need to be serious about the prescription for the education system.
As it stands, the system is not fulfilling the needs of the nation as the knowledge, abilities and language skills of most graduates leave much to be desired.
There has yet to be any effort to address the inadequacies of the education system.
The assertion that students can understand their teachers better in their own language in this context is rather warped.
If this is true, then Chinese and Indian students in national schools would be underperformers. This is obviously not the case.
We have yet to see the outline and be convinced that the MBMMBI policy will improve and increase students' mastery of and competence in English.
The letter from Solihan does not prove that MBMMBI is superior than PPSMI in improving the competency of learning and using English language in line with achieving a competitive and globalised workforce.
Therefore, we urge the government to seriously consider PPSMI as an option for the schools that want it.
(the letter to NST was signed off as) DATIN NOOR AZIMAH ABDUL RAHIM, Page, Kuala Lumpur
4 comments:
If you walk into the UM Bookstore, you will find all the textbooks written in the english language. Every subject, including economics, maths, chemistry, management, medicine. Except probably malay literature in the Malaysiana section, it is hard to find one written in bahasa malaysia.
So the question before us is this:
if we train students in our national schools in subjects using bahasa as the medium of instruction, won't they have difficulty reading texts in english after school when they go to the next level? And i mean any subject, not just science or maths.
Since we don't expect the MOE not to have known this all along, the only conclusion one can draw is that they are only focused on education up to secondary school level and/or ignoring facts to satisfy some other agenda.
Which might also explain why no texts beyond that level are extensively published in bahasa malaysia for local reference.
Perhaps all this is because in splitting the education portfolio into lower and higher education ministries, a disconnect has been created where each is trying to take care of its own responsibility without one thinking it is a feeder to the other. But with wrong food comes indigestion, doesn't it?
One key objective of education is interactivity (http://is.gd/g1AW8) The student who graduates from an education system must be able to interact well on his own in the knowledge sphere he specializes.
Presumably that interactivity depends on his own initiative to read and refer extensively without recourse to an institution or others.
Imagine the graduate as he starts work in a company, perhaps an SME, after coming out from a college or a university. His lecturers are no longer with him, not that they have been able to provide any individual attention to him in the first place. The company needs his help to evaluate a discovery or technology. And the literature in that area is all not in bahasa malaysia. Including the brochure or manual or peer review.
If he has only been schooled in bahasa and even if he has then been colleged in english, what sort of depth can we say he has obtained in his studies to be accurate in his assessment of the topic in a commercial setting where error or delay costs money?
Let alone using local ideas from that area to generate new commercial products or services?
Now, if even this scenario is too far forward for our education policy planners or politicians, let's take another simpler example.
Say in school we have some natural bright sparks in class. They are ahead of their peers, and want to read a topic or two on their own, for examples:
http://is.gd/g1BxE
http://is.gd/g1BzZ
If their command of the english language is good in the context of the subjects, then they can read them more easily and comprehend them faster and more accurately - probably on their own - because the subject matters are outside the official syllabi - which are in the first place the most rudimentary compared to those of other more advanced economies.
If however we continue the way the MOE wants, then the bright sparks will grow dim because they won't be able to read on their own stuff like that which i have just pointed you to in two clicks only. And you can imagine if i can do that, how much more there must be behind firewalls. And i don't mean just for science and maths.
2/2
The missing link in the entire rubric is this - we don't have a mechanism to trigger sparks and energize our young minds to be curious about what the world is and has done and will do. It's a complete blank.
The tragedy is that the blank can be filled very quickly if they are soaked in the right medium of instructions as tools relevant to their future - the means to get know-how and knowledge on their own after school and beyond curricula. In trying to finagle some funny objectives, the planners have ended up regimenting a entire system to fit their own limited standards and racial imagination, and when they failed even in that, they next pruned human potential to some median which drops in competence from one year to the next.
Now without bright sparks, who will be driving the innovative and high-income economy that has been pandered around?
And without the driving force of an informed and knowledgeable human resource enlightened by the melt of processed information across multiple disciplines, which private investor will be planting investment capital to build the enterprises that will employ more workers?
But this is not all. There are two other trends.
The standard of english in the vernacular schools has also been dropping.
If there are not enough teachers in english for national schools, you can imagine the situation in vernacular schools. These schools graduate out people who will be businessmen and industrialists to run the very backbone of this country's enterprises where it matters - at the entrepreneurial SME level. Some may even go up to regional level but that will take a longer timespan.
If they do not spruce and beef up the command of the english language as a tool for research-enriched western knowledge, they will miss one critical factor for the industrial and commmercial base of this country to catch up. Losing competitiveness may then destroy the support structure for even the new economy the country is envisioning next.
The next factor is the exchange rate. Our ringgit has just weakened even more against the singapore and australian dollars. These two countries are popular destinations for further education for many of our students. And while the ringgit has strengthened against the sterling and euro, Cameron's government is planning to raise fees soon. The implications of these developments are already being felt in many households whose members may take it up in frustration at the next snap elections, especially now that a former PM had indirectly admitted that criteria for admission of nonMalays was made more stringent to exclude them from placements into local public universities.
And it will only be fanning that justifiable frustration if people still go around using the word 'official' to justify a monoracial prejudice for medium of instruction when events have shown in the last forty years that 'official' has no meaning in this world of 'relevance'.
And one can be pretty sure that if even a statement by the PM that the nonMalays are not immigrants today can draw flak to make him appear weak, the precipitous second drop in our FDI will be repeated next year. The only consolation this year has been what remaining FDI that came in went to the Opposition states.
One is almost tempted to ask if FDIs don't come and DDIs are almost nonexistent, which race will be affected first?
It seems the stupidity of racial parochialism doesn't reside only in education matters in this country.
1/2
If you walk into the UM Bookstore, you will find all the textbooks written in the english language. Every subject, including economics, maths, chemistry, management, medicine. Except probably malay literature in the Malaysiana section, it is hard to find one written in bahasa malaysia.
So the question before us is this:
if we train students in our national schools in subjects using bahasa as the medium of instruction, won't they have difficulty reading texts in english after school when they go to the next level? And i mean any subject, not just science or maths.
Since we don't expect the MOE not to have known this all along, the only conclusion one can draw is that they are only focused on education up to secondary school level and/or ignoring facts to satisfy some other agenda.
Which might also explain why no texts beyond that level are extensively published in bahasa malaysia for local reference.
Perhaps all this is because in splitting the education portfolio into lower and higher education ministries, a disconnect has been created where each is trying to take care of its own responsibility without one thinking it is a feeder to the other. But with wrong food comes indigestion, doesn't it?
One key objective of education is interactivity (http://is.gd/g1AW8) The student who graduates from an education system must be able to interact well on his own in the knowledge sphere he specializes.
Presumably that interactivity depends on his own initiative to read and refer extensively without recourse to an institution or others.
Imagine the graduate as he starts work in a company, perhaps an SME, after coming out from a college or a university. His lecturers are no longer with him, not that they have been able to provide any individual attention to him in the first place. The company needs his help to evaluate a discovery or technology. And the literature in that area is all not in bahasa malaysia. Including the brochure or manual or peer review.
If he has only been schooled in bahasa and even if he has then been colleged in english, what sort of depth can we say he has obtained in his studies to be accurate in his assessment of the topic in a commercial setting where error or delay costs money?
Let alone using local ideas from that area to generate new commercial products or services?
Now, if even this scenario is too far forward for our education policy planners or politicians, let's take another simpler example.
Say in school we have some natural bright sparks in class. They are ahead of their peers, and want to read a topic or two on their own, for examples:
http://is.gd/g1BxE
http://is.gd/g1BzZ
If their command of the english language is good in the context of the subjects, then they can read them more easily and comprehend them faster and more accurately - probably on their own - because the subject matters are outside the official syllabi - which are in the first place the most rudimentary compared to those of other more advanced economies.
If however we continue the way the MOE wants, then the bright sparks will grow dim because they won't be able to read on their own stuff like that which i have just pointed you to in two clicks only. And you can imagine if i can do that, how much more there must be behind firewalls. And i don't mean just for science and maths.
how to push (tolak) 2 away from 5 ??
5-2 = ??
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