Whenever people quarrel over which medium of instruction they should use in schools or universities, their arguments are often presented in the form of comparisons made between their country and other countries.

This is currently happening in Malaysia, where various stakeholders are fighting over which language should be used to teach science and maths in schools.

Proponents of English say that English is today’s lingua franca of science and that it is vital for the economic progress of Malaysia.

Mother tongue supporters, on the other hand, point to the fact that countries like Japan and Germany, which represent the second and third largest economies of the world after the US, use their native languages in both school and in higher education.

The debate then continues and often boils down to comparisons and analogies until the boundaries between right and wrong are blurred, or blur, as people in Malaysia and Singapore say.

If truth be told, the vast majority of developed countries use their local languages in education, administration and other transactions, but there is a substantial number of countries that use their mother tongues in all aspects of life and are, nonetheless, underdeveloped and poor.

If you want a useful example, let us look at Spain and Colombia. Both use Spanish, which is the mother tongue in both countries, for all communication within the country.

Although both countries have the same number of inhabitants, the Spanish economy is about five times bigger than its Colombian counterpart.

In fact, Spain should be worse off because it has to accommodate speakers of other local languages such as Catalan, Galician and Basque, which are spoken by about one fourth of the population and which even enjoy a presence in higher education.

Whereas Spanish has no competition from other languages used in Colombia, which are spoken by no more than half a million Colombians. So, what do we make of the fact that Spain is prospering while Colombia is lagging behind?

The above question leads to another question; namely does it really matter whether Malaysia uses English or its local language(s)?

The answer loud and clear is: yes , it does matter. The use of a foreign language like English as a medium of instruction in Malaysian schools is not only harmful because a huge number of pupils and teachers do not have an firm command of the language, it is also detrimental because speaking English gives Malaysians, and other non-native speakers for that matter, an aura of hollow prestige, progress and modernity.

It makes them feel and sound sophisticated when they are not. In this way the use of English will certainly lead Malaysians away from tackling their real problems, which are not language-based.

Reverting to Malay as a medium of instruction will not in itself turn Malaysia into a developed country, not even in one hundred years, but it will be a step in the right direction.

This because it will show that the declining standards of education have nothing to do with language. If people, however, keep blaming language for their own failure, they will be stuck forever in the mirage of language.

In one hundred years then, if China becomes more powerful than the US, Manglish-speaking Malaysians will perhaps protest against science and maths in Mandarin.