I refer to the letter Wave goodbye as the world overtakes us, folks .

The writer should not confuse the Mahathir-crafted Maths and Science in English (PPSMI) programme with achieving results in English proficiency. That’s like insisting only the National Service camps dreamt up by Najib Abdul Razak can promote integration, and anyone against Najib’s NS programme is hindering children from becoming integrated or patriotic.

While we support integration, it doesn’t mean that we must support his ‘1Camp’ as the ideal method of achieving the objective. Ditto English proficiency and PPSMI – the two can be separated and at the same time, other related socio-economic factors peculiar to Malaysia must be borne in mind.

Let me address the writer’s points in the order that he/she presents them. One, the writer  pits Chinese against English and declares English the winner. Although I wouldn’t extol and exalt English the way this language’s diehard fans at home are doing, nonetheless I’ve no quarrel over its importance globally. However, Chinese should not be downplayed in our local context.

The language is almost a must in the segments of the private sector that are Chinese or China- driven, just as BM is vital in the public sector. Do read the letter titled The language that will best ensure that one can cari makan’ , from another writer who doesn’t reckon his two sons will make it to college.

This view on the utility of Chinese is one that I share. Like he says, it is the most useful for non-elites trying to earn a living here. So although, the writer claims that “English is often the language of choice used in proceedings and documentation within the UN Economic Commission for Europe”, I do not see any great relevance of UNECE minutes to the overwhelming majority of Malaysians.

English may be preferred by UN but not all our schoolchildren are on the next plane to Geneva.  

To come back to the letter I referred to at the beginning, the writer’s second point accused those who are anti-PPSMI as advocating ‘a near-monolingual educational system in Malaysia (that) will eventually paint themselves and the entire country into a corner’. This is a false and faulty argument.

Even UiTM today recognises the importance of Chinese, in addition to English. The medium of instruction in the SRJK (C) and SRJK (T) are Chinese and Tamil respectively. We are, in fact, operating a trilingual educational system; it is the overly-desired fourth system of English – as advocated by some – that is not provided for in the Education Act or Federal Constitution.

This is because Chinese and Tamil are the pupil’s own language, whereas we’d be hard-pressed to find any good number of Malaysians who can rightly declare English as their mother tongue.

Post-PPSMI, Malaysian primary schools will have 330 minutes of English (as a pure language subject) per week, or on average one hour and six minutes of lessons every day.

Te writer also tells us all Swiss students are required to ‘learn English as an international language’. Like Malaysian students are not? Why reveal something so utterly banal unless the writer wishes to claim the Swiss school timetable is allocating more hours than Malaysia’s one-and-a half daily periods for English? (Not likely, considering that they have four other national languages to teach, ie, German, French, Italian and Romansh).

By no stretch of the imagination can we attribute the Swiss ‘world-class educational system’ as being obtained from a PPSMI-templated blueprint.

The third point raised by the writer is inherently contradictory to her theory. She contends: ‘Is it any wonder that so many of our local university graduates are not employable or marketable because most of them are monolingual?’

If, as she alleges, so many grads can’t speak anything else but BM, can we expect much better of primary schoolteachers trained in ‘maktab’? Where to get overnight the tens of thousands of fluent English-speaking Maths and Science teachers, especially those willing to accept postings to far-flung rural areas and the deep interior, who will not contaminate their pupils’ grammar and pronunciation?

Fourthly, I do not see the relevance of the writer citing Switzerland’s ETHZ as offering ‘a doctorate degree entirely in English”. The International Islamic University in Malaysia offers doctorates in English too…so what’s the writer’s point? With regards to PPSMI, we’re talking about kids, not PhD aspirants.

Next, the writer refers to a roadmap for China’s year 2050 vision and the country’s ‘more than 250 scientists’ of presumable renown. Do you think those 250 China scientists studied Maths and Science in English at school in Quanzhou and Chengdu? In any case, who says we Malaysians haven’t kept up with the Joneses?

Only last Tuesday, Deputy Education Minister Wee Ka Siong during his debate with Prof Khoo Kay Kim reeled off an impressively long roll of honour – SRJK (C) products who are today the leading scientists and academicians in world-famous institutions, and not forgetting pendrive inventor Pua Khein Seng who did his university in Taiwan.

Fifthly, the writer cites MIT lectures and Public Library of Science literature that are available online and concludes Malaysian students will be big losers in this case because all these materials are in English.

Please find me the Malaysian 7-12 year old who requires reading material in the vein of ‘the E2 glycoprotein of the Chikungunya virus is responsible for cellular receptor recognition’. As I’ve said from the outset, PPSMI does not necessarily correlate with increased English competency enabling one to understand Web content or journals and research papers.

Plus always bear in mind the target group – do we want pupils to be able to comprehend the subject rudiments or are we aiming for our nine million youngsters (32 percent of the population are under age 15) to become rocket scientists?

Lastly, the writer notes that more publications will be made available in English with the introduction of ICT gadgets like Apple iPad. PPSMI is a policy that causes the have-nots to further lag behind, albeit benefitting the haves who can afford iPads and later private tertiary education overseas in English-speaking countries.

The iPad is to be launched next month and expected to retail at between US$500 and US$1,000. It is great that parents pushing hard for English are willing to invest some RM4,000 so that their children can use this Apple invention to peruse cutting edge scientific discoveries and dissertations online (assuming they don’t surf for pop star pin-ups or online games).

But other equally angry parents who are anti-PPSMI may not even have money to spare to provide their children with a second set of school uniform and shoes. Don’t just (wrongly) point fingers at Malay language enthusiasts for ‘selling out the next generation’. It is in fact morally correct for any citizen to support his country’s national language.

If our future has been jeopardised, it was done by those who kept BN in power all these years through their vote, particularly the Chinese supporters of Dr Mahathir Mohamad who returned him to office in 1999. And jeopardised by everyone countenancing Mahathir’s humiliation of Suqiu, and through their general silence, endorse the continued lowering of standards in our public institutions, including schools.

Ultimately, don’t you think that policymakers in the education sector now bear at least a modicum of responsibility to the larger sections of our population who cannot lobby (so vehemently in English) to ensure their children’s future?