I agree with S K Yong that while encouraging the use of English is good, the policy makers should also look into the resources currently available.

To some, if not many, Yong's true story of a trainee teacher who had to seek help to correct English essays is funny, if not quite unbelievable. I do not doubt its truth for I have had quite a similar experience.

I studied in a convent in the city from 1984 to 1994. Every year, trainee teachers would come to our school for a month or two, to teach in all subjects, but those who taught English were the most memorable. We often ended up teaching them English instead.

It was great fun for us at that time, because as young girls, we could for once be the teacher instead of being taught for a change. However in hindsight, it was scary to realise that the standard of English among most young Malaysians had deteriorated that much. Even more troubling is the realisation that these trainee teachers have since been deemed 'qualified' to teach "proper" English!

At my school, although the medium of instruction was Malay, most of our teachers still taught in English. Hence we had our Mathematics and Science taught mostly in English, but we wrote our lab reports in Malay. The reason was our teachers were taught in English during their time, and they would do us a grave injustice if they failed to impart correct scientific concepts to us because of their inadequacy in Malay.

The fear among certain quarters that students would suffer if Mathematics and Science were to be taught in English is unfounded. English was never a mother tongue for Malaysians, but no student had problems learning all the subjects in English when it was the medium of instruction.

Today, regardless of their academic qualification (or lack of such qualifications), that generation of Malaysians still had a better grasp of English than most of our fresh university graduates.

While we have established that the ability to master English is essential if we want to move forward, we should look at how we go about implementing it. The debate of whether mastering English is at the expense of cultural subjugation for any of the ethnic groups in Malaysia is outdated and would remain at a stalemate.

The generation of Malaysians who went to English schools are never less a Malay, Chinese or Indian than the others. Hence, the situation we are facing is whether we have the political will to see this through, and the maturity of judgement to implement it properly for the benefit of future Malaysians. The government has started the ball rolling by bringing the issue up, but to ensure that the ball stays in the court, it should be properly manoeuvred to avoid making costly mistakes.

English as medium of instruction in Mathematics and Science should be implemented in stages in tandem with the availability of teachers who could teach them properly in English. Otherwise, it would only serve to prove the sceptics correct if our students' grasp of scientific concepts deteriorates simply because the teachers could not impart the knowledge properly.

All said, it is true that Mathematics and Science do not necessarily have to be taught in English to produce the best scientists, and it is also true that English as a living language, could not be learnt entirely through Mathematics and Science only.

However, if we want young Malaysians to master English and not downplay its importance in a globalised economy, we would have to attach a significant degree of importance to it in our education system to stop students "escaping" from learning it.