VOXPOP 'Education minister, now tell us who has been given the choice on the teaching maths and science in English - the teachers or parents?'

1,000 Malaccans rally for teaching in English

Disbeliever: Well done, Malaccans. You have just proven to the authorities that a peaceful gathering to voice your opinion (and perhaps frustration) could be conducted in a civilised manner.

And for once, the police have used their discretion to allow the rally to proceed without any crackdown. The ball is in DPM/Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's court.

But alas, I am sceptical as to the government consenting to the parents' request. I'd love to be proven wrong.

Amirul Shah: The principals of schools in Johor have been going against the Education Ministry's recent shift in policy. Some have been telling the teachers that they can still choose to teach in Bahasa Malaysia and nobody should question them.

They were told that they were entitled to their PPSMI allowance even if they taught in Bahasa Malaysia.

Education minister, now tell us who has been given the choice on the teaching maths and science in English - the teachers or parents?

Samuel Ng: I was educated in the English medium (in the early 1970s) but with Bahasa Malaysia as a compulsory subject. Today in my mid 50s, I still speak and write Bahasa Malaysia whenever necessary and I am trying to pick up Mandarin.

Being proficient in English doesn't mean I am less loyal to Malaysia. My presence in this nation in spite of numerous opportunities to migrate is a testimony to how much most Malaysians love this nation.

The government must please rethink the direction of our education system before it marginalises our youth in the global economy.

Parent-Mcca: It's not about English proficiency but about using the teaching of maths and science in English to provide children with the right tools in helping them learn the two subjects effectively and preparing them for tertiary education when maths and science will be taught in English.

By that stage, the students would thus be already familiar with terms used in maths and sciences when they enter university. Plus, tonnes of information can be found in the Internet that will help their studies and these are mostly in English.

Anonymous: "We are grateful to the government," said Malacca Action Group for Parents in Education (Magpie). What kind of slave talk is that? What is there to be grateful, for something created by the PM and DPM themselves?

Are you not pandering to the feudal system? Use your brains instead of always, at the drop of a hat, having nice things to say about such leaders after you get your way.

Khaled calls on varsity to attract more male students

David Dass: This is a strange phenomenon. It appears to be a universal problem. A study should be conducted to ascertain why this is happening in Malaysia. The male-female imbalance among the university student population is too great.

My impression obtained after teaching a few years in a college was that women are generally more meticulous and hard working and men are generally more playful, relying on 'flair' to get through their studies.

But that does not answer the question of why the numbers are so skewed. A proper study should be conducted. There are long-term implications with men spending less years studying.

Blind Freddo: It looks like this is another attempt to further degrade the standards of tertiary education at university level. Isn't a Certificate in Freight Logistic Management and Operations Programme just a fancy name for a truck driver?

I wonder if there is a unit in the syllabus on 'How to Drive'. The reason young men do not go to university is that they are lacking motivation.

They know the government will give them a cushy job, so why work your butt off for three years only to find that with a mediocre qualification you end up getting, you are unemployable.

Borg Kinaulu: Some suggestions for ‘non-academic' courses: ‘Ketuanan 101' and ‘Running Amok' at certificate, diploma and degree levels perhaps?

Why is the higher education minister telling a university to offer ‘non-academic' courses? Why is the ‘university' offering a certificate course for logistics? What is the minister doing lowering the bar for the universities?

Or is the minister simply telling Open University Malaysia (OUM) it is really not qualified to offer academic degree programmes? If that is the case the ‘university' should probably be named ‘vocational school' or ‘technical college'.

Since the BN government has no idea how to manage the education challenge (among many others), it should just step aside and give more competent people a chance for the love of the country and its rakyat, please?

Bender: I sense a bit of a gender bias being propagated here by the minister, who got slapped (figuratively, of course) by a professor recently for being so stupid.

So, such courses as freight logistics and operations management has been signaled as male-only field of study (hence the call for more male students)?

I wonder if Khaled ever watched Lisa Kelly of the History Channel's ‘Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Road' fame and witnessed how a scrawny-looking female can conquer deadly roads like the Rohtang Pass?

If male students don't want to study then it's the government's fault for making campus life so boring with so much restrictions on individual freedom.

Garrulous Gary: Why the need to attract more male students? They are not discriminated against in the first place. The minister should instead encourage male students to compete harder.

But our society, being a patriarchal one, the boys see no need to work hard to get ahead in life. Their mothers spoil them in childhood and the government spoils them in their adulthood, so why bother?

The above is a selection of comments posted by Malaysiakini subscribers. Only paying subscribers can post comments. Over the past one year, Malaysiakinians have posted over 100,000 comments. Join the Malaysiakini community and help set the news agenda. Subscribe now .