I am not writing this letter just for the sake of protesting or to politicise further the debate on the use of English to teach Mathematics and Science. I just want to tell my story in the hope the decision makers could see the true picture.

I was born in 1963 and I was the first batch of students who studied in the Malay medium. I was also in the pioneer batch who sat for the Sijil Rendah Pelajaran in 1978.

After Standard Six, I went on to a residential school where the students were all Malay Malaysians and I sat for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia in 1980. Yet I always scored a distinction for Bahasa Inggeris in all the major examinations that I sat for, even for English 121 in the Cambridge examinations.

After Form Five most of the students went overseas to further their studies and they became excellent and exemplary students who did their country proud. They are now professionals in their own fields of study and are living proof that they could master the English language even though they studied Mathematics and Science in Malay.

We are living proof that it is not the medium of instruction but how English is taught that is important. We need qualified teachers who can teach the language and make English lessons interesting for the students.

Teachers have to speak English when they are teaching in class and students must be made to speak in English too. There is no sense in attending English classes but not being able to speak English fluently.

There are many ways to make English lessons interesting such as having dictation, summarising stories and staging English plays and dramas. You can even have singing lessons to enliven up the class. The teachers must be able to create a conducive environment for the students to learn to speak and write in English with the help of reliable textbooks.

I guess I was lucky because I had good and experienced English teachers who always emphasised the importance of learning the language well. Even when I was in an all-Malay residential school, we used English in our daily conversation and the students from rural areas also benefitted from it.

The fact is, in order to address the decline of our command of the English language we must find ways and means of improving the syllabus and reinvent the teaching method. English teachers too must have the relevant qualifications and expertise to teach the language.

The solution is definitely not in teaching Mathematics and Science in English. Imagine the worst-case scenario in which students fare badly in Mathematics and Science, and are still not speaking any better in English.

Please don't make a hasty decision in implementation because this concerns the future of our children and the next generation. The students will eventually be the victims and who is going to bear the blame?

The Education Ministry and the government must be held accountable for the situation that the students are in today. They must look and acknowledge the problems at hand instead of announcing new policies every now and then which benefit no one.

I hope all my friends who studied in the Malay medium would speak up and relate their experiences. Please don't sacrifice the future of our children because there is too much at risk.

Please consider and understand the plight of the students, especially those from rural areas. They deserve a level playing field to compete with the rest of the world.