Whew! Finally anxious parents get a reprieve (or is it?) with DPM Muhyiddin Yassin’s announcement that students who started out with studying mathematics and science in English will allowed to continue in the language they studied. What remains to be seen will be the implementation of this policy.
Our hearts goes out to parents whose children commence standard one, next year. Especially as there are many of us who speak English at home and who want our children to compete in the international arena.
Parents want to know categorically, how the policy will be implemented in schools. We do hope the minister will ensure that especially in urban schools, these subjects be taught in English and the option not left to the discretion of the teacher. We parents had rightly guessed, that in the end the implementation will be left in the hands of the headmaster and teachers of the school and it would be back to square one.
Now why do we parents find this unacceptable? Because we foresee that most of the headmasters and teachers will find the easy way out and continue with impunity teach math and science in Malay. So where does that leave our children who would be disadvantaged by this flip-flop policy?
We angry parents would like this question to be answered by Ministry of Education (MOE): in what language are the texts for science and math for Year 2012 and what about our children who are in schools who are unable to teach in English?
Some of the children have already received text books in English and so we ask again of the MOE, will these students be taught in English? What is the time frame to complete the transfer of school, if we wish our children to be in schools that teach these subjects in English? Let us know categorically which schools will be teaching in English and the procedure for transfer.
Some issues I want to highlight are:
Politicisation of education
Malaysian politicians are famous for making grandiose statements, with little or no concern for the actual implementation. Regardless, parents still remain anxious and uncomfortable at the politicisation of education. Our children have become pawns in the hands of these ministers who for political mileage use education as a bait, and leaders elected by us to be our representatives have consistently played us out.
Textbooks for SPM students recalled by schools prior to exams
Is the ministry aware that SPM students who are sitting for exams next week had to return their textbooks to the school before their exams? What kind of system is in place that does not care for the needs of the children?
Shape up or Ship Out the incompetent
We do hope that all these issues of mis-management of the Education System, will be reflected in the KPIs of the ministers and haul up and make accountable the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Education.
No English able teachers?
Many excuses have been used to revert the teaching of science and math to Malay, such as the teachers being unable to teach in English. Why should this be when millions have been spent in training the teachers, for software, including teachers’ and student manuals? There has been almost six years of these subjects being taught in English, enough time for teachers to cope with the changes.
Private tuition and cost of activity books
This is also a call to take action or ship out all those incompetent and lazy teachers who promote their own private tuition classes to students instead of giving their best in class. This has become a racket and a bane to parents. In some countries, it is a policy that teachers cannot give private tuition to students from their own schools.
Furthermore, parents of students in national schools are forking out huge sums on tuition and activity books, not withstanding the petrol costs and time spent in ferrying students to and from tuition, duplicating what should have been taught in school. Shouldn’t the educational needs for students be met in school? The amounts we pay out each month, is almost what parents pay to have their children schooled privately.
Syllabus
Our syllabus is not challenging to young minds; we promote rote learning rather than creative thinking. It is baffling why there has to be multiple choice for math, when 2 + 2 = 4 and can never be, 22 or anything else! The syllabus for English as well, to say the least: students study greetings from Std 1 to Form 5, keeping the students on the brink of boredom, through their school years.
Oh, I wonder what’s the reason for 50 percent of Form Four history syllabus being dedicated solely to Islam, after all Muslim students do study this separately and it will be repetition for them. Furthermore a small portion of the syllabus dedicated to this beautiful religion would be fine, otherwise isn’t it proselytising?
At primary level, students are barely exposed to the laboratory, yet their science paper has an entire section devoted to experiments, their observations and conclusions. There is hardly any space for creative writing or intellectual discourse.
The truth is, if we want to compete with the rest of the world and acquire developed status, the level of teaching in schools should be improved to enhance the education standard. The government should have a more inclusive, multi racial recruitment policy and a compensation system to reward good teachers, this which will automatically raise the level of efficiency and productivity of concerned school teachers and directly impact the performance of students.
Streaming and the freezing up young minds
By the way, the system of streaming young children is absolutely ridiculous as it only serves to lower children’s self esteem, with no benchmarks for either the good or the poor students to emulate; it is a form of segregation that should be abolished immediately.
It is also believed that only the first classes get good teachers, then you are giving those children the unfair advantage and that in effect is cheating the other students, which totally erodes their self confidence. After all the Malaysian education system has not produced any Nobel laureates so now, concede to the weakness and make the necessary changes.
An International hub for education?
Malaysia also has the grand plan to become an education hub and again tax payers’ money has been spent in promoting Malaysia as a destination for higher education. How the heck are we to do this, when our students, even teachers and lecturers are more proficient in Bahasa Malaysia than English? Is anyone at MOHE even thinking?
Imagine the dismay of an international PhD student who submits a PhD proposal to the English department in University Malaya and receives the recommendations and comments in Bahasa Malaysia. This truly happened, and such are the low standards that we have come to accept in our country.
Regardless it all boils down to raising the standards of English all round, which the DPM has promised to do, but we wonder if the minister realises this can only be achieved when a majority of the subjects are taught in English, and only when the teachers begin to speak and write in English will Malaysia ever achieve a breakthrough in this aspect.
No Speak English?
We have lofty goals to achieve and it all sounds rather nice for the government to proclaim it wants us to become “high income nation” and that Malaysia wants to acquire developed status, but what are the plans implemented to achieve these goals?
Can these benchmarks and milestones be achieved without English, the lingua franca of international education, trade and industry, of banking and finance and even tourism? Where does the lack of English language proficiency leave us all, if we cannot compete in the global arena? Perhaps on the road to Greece?
Strategic plan for the future?
Going back to the main point of the PPSMI, it is imperative and incumbent on the government and the Ministry of Education to chalk out an acceptable and concrete plan on how science and mathematics are going to be taught over the next few years.
Parents who are also voters want to know what is being done to upgrade the education system in Malaysia to ensure our children are not left behind and are able to compete at international levels. No, not all of us can afford International schools - we are not rich cronies nor are we well paid How many government bureaucrats are there who can afford to send out kids to elite schools, so don’t even tell us so.
Seriously, the education system needs to be revamped, a good starting point would be to remove the purview of education from the hands of the politicians and leave it in the hands of reputable academicians, as our children are not footballs to be kicked around by our ministers of (mis) education!
