I refer to the following letters, Bahasa Melayu sebagai bahasa sains dan matematik by Iznazhani and English switch a Mahathir blunder by K Arumugam.

In my opinion, the strategy to teach Mathematics and Science in English should not be concluded as a failure as it is too soon for anyone make judgment on the success or failure of this strategy. I think the same strategy was employed when the Education Ministry switched from using English as a main medium in schools to Bahasa Malaysia as the main medium under a new school curriculum revolving around the SRP, SPM and STPM examinations.

I am sure at the time of this policy change, there was a problem in the implementation as most trainers and teachers at that time were armed with English as the main medium of instruction. Obviously, the policy's success took a long time to show results (many years). Therefore, the current policy is in the same situation as well. Saying that the current policy is a blunder seems premature at this stage.

It is good to see that everybody agrees that English is an important lingua franca in the world today. While I do not refute or disagree with the report written by Unesco, I think the fact is that in our country, the standard of English is on the decline. One only has the read of the high unemployment among graduates from local universities due to the lack of proficiency in English. This has been admitted by the deputy human resources minister in Parliament on Oct 25 and the government has to waste money training them through a Graduate Training Scheme to improve their English proficiency. This is a fact that we cannot run from.

Arumugam does not provide any alternative to improve English proficiency. Therefore, by improving the frequency of the use of English through the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English seems to be currently the best form of improving the standard of English in our country.

There is no denying Iznazhani's point that there have been famous scientists who did their work in the own mother tongue and have tasted success. However, I would like to point out that times have changed. If you look at the current leading journals in Mathematics and Science, most of these publications are in English. Is there any leading journal in Mathematics or Science which is in Bahasa Malaysia, German or Russian? I doubt.

Even if a thesis is written in Bahasa Malaysia at UKM may be a thesis of quality, if someone wants to publish a section of the thesis as a paper in a leading journal, it must be translated into English first. Therefore, one cannot escape the fact that proficiency in English is not a matter of luxury but a matter of survival in the world today.