I do not have the details of the switch to English in the teaching of Mathematics and Science, but from the bits and pieces gleaned from Deputy Education Minister Abdul Aziz Shamsuddin I suspect that the Education Ministry is expecting our teachers to achieve the impossible.

In addition to helping the students understand the subjects, the Science and Maths teachers would have to:

  • cope with the new teaching medium themselves;

  • familiarise themselves with the new learning material, computer and other aids and equipment; and

  • help the students cope with the language.

    • And city teachers are being asked to be "prepared to help their counterparts in rural areas".

    All these are to start January 2003. What about training the teachers first? Even with the plan in place, can effective training be completed in just two months? What will happen to the teachers who are not fluent in the language? From what I can see, they are left on their own. I am worried that they will not be able to do as good a job as they want with all the distractions.

    By the way, what's up with all the high-tech equipment? Why are computers and LCD projectors so important in the ministry's plan when some schools do not even have the electricity to implement it? Maths and Science have been taught without computers and LCD projectors for centuries.

    My primary and secondary school teachers did not have computers or LCD projectors. They taught me in Mandarin and Malay. When I attended college in the US, the Maths and Science professors didn't even have computers or LCD projectors — just the plain, old-fashioned pieces of chalks and blackboards.

    Some professors use projectors and transparencies, only to write on the transparencies as if they were writing on the blackboard. Even my computer graphics, computer science, electronics and computer architecture professors do not have computers or LCD projectors.

    With all this old-fashioned teachings techniques, I managed to graduate from college, went on to get my Master's degree and am now earning a reasonably comfortable living in the Silicon Valley. And I owe it to all the teachers and professors.

    I think no amount of comprehension of a particular language or high-tech teaching aids can help students if they didn't have teachers who take their job seriously and are skilled in teaching to keep their students focused and passionate in their studies. Mo< Anyway, the point is the Education Ministry's emphasis on computers and LCD projectors is way off. We should work on first improving the quality of our teachers, then the equipment.

    With all the corruption and cronyism in Malaysia, one can only speculate why the Education Ministry appears more keen in the supply of the "high-tech" aids to the schools than the future of the students.

    This is compounded by the fact that the BN's way of settling the language switch issue is via political conference with its component parties than consultation with educationists. From all these, we can only conclude they have everything (politics especially) but the future of our children in mind.