Hussaini Abdul Karim (NST Apr 21) accurately rebutted many flawed arguments presented by the President of Malaysian Linguistic Society, Norhashimah Jalaluddin, in her article ‘Science and Maths in English: BM is soul of the nation’ (NST Apr 19).   

She wrote, “Bahasa Malaysia is easily the most comprehensible language for educational purposes in the country”. Unmistakably, she is looking at the issue only from within a narrow band of an academic language of instruction while neglecting the wider scheme of things such as unemployment due to a poor command of English as well as international language needs of a profession, business, science, technology and many other related fields.   

The learned professor also said, “It is morally wrong for these individuals to insist that others conform to their demands”. Ironically, she is doing just that by continuing to say she will “strongly condemn any suggestion to revive and re-implement the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI), be it fully or partially” and demanded to “hold to the education minister's promise to abolish PPSMI up to the tertiary level by reverting to the pre-2003 status quo”.   

By the way, Norhashimah, while you mentioned that “they are spoilt for choice in choosing from private and international schools for their children's education”, I am not able to find one in Petaling Jaya that is affordable to many of us families from the lower and middle-income group.  

While you are at this, could you also kindly recommend any private or international schools in Taiping and Pasir Mas (for that matter, most towns throughout Peninsular and East Malaysia) to my relatives and friends who wish to send their children to such schools, assuming they can afford the additional financial burden.