Many people have thought the earlier political leaders were wrong in changing the medium of instructions in schools and universities from English to Malay.

I for o­ne think that it is not right to say that they were wrong in coming up with the national language policy that carried out such a change. It was o­ne of the means to unite the nation. o­n the contrary, I applaud what the earlier leadership has done.

Nowadays, the people of our nation, especially the younger generations, are fluent in the national language. However, among the older generations of non-Malay Malaysians, even among the current politicians, you can still find some who are not able to converse in the national language fluently and I for o­ne found this to be something that he/she ought to be ashamed of.

Now, while it is good for us to know as many languages as possible o­ne should not be ashamed if o­ne is not able to converse in other languages, such as English, as fluently as the national language. Why should she or he be ashamed? After all, the language is not her or his mother tongue or national language. It is a bonus if o­ne can speak other languages.

Conversely, I am really pleased and proud to see most, especially the younger generation of non-Malay politicians, are able to deliver their speeches in the national language fluently. They can now deliver their message in the language that the whole population can understand regardless of whether their audience is urban or rural. Obviously, this is o­ne of the proofs that the previous leadership has done the right thing.

With so many changes that have occurred in the world since our independence and now that our country is more mature, let us examine the issue of the national education policy so that we can understand its evolution better.

Here, I would to share my own experience with respect to this topic of the English language usage in schools. I was among the last batch of students who went through the school system with English as the medium of instruction right from Standard o­ne to Form Five.

My classes throughout the period were multi-racial, even though the majority of the students were Malays. Everyone in the class spoke fluent Malay, particularly the Kelantan dialect. So, the problem of our inability to talk to o­ne another in a common language was not there.

However, the same is not true throughout the nation at that time. When I went for further studies in Kuala Lumpur in 1970, things were different.

When you went shopping or talked to non-Malay Malaysians o­n the streets it was difficult to find o­ne who could converse in the national language fluently. Most could o­nly speak the so-called "bazaar Malay". Obviously, it was not good for a young and growing nation of ours to not have a common language.

So, the gradual switch to the national language as the medium of instruction in school, which had just been introduced by the political leadership then, was the right move.

I left Kuala Lumpur in late 1974 to further my studies overseas and returned late 1979. The complete shift in the medium of instruction to the national language in schools that had started in 1970 has produced the expected results. Most of the younger population could speak the national language fluently.

Nowadays, everyone can now understand whatever message delivered by the nation in the various media. Of course, the shift to the use of the national language in schools and later in the universities has resulted in the declining standard of English.

As a college professor in o­ne of the local universities in Malaysia for 22 years before I decided to take an early retirement, I could really notice the deterioration of the standard of English among the students.

On many occasions, I thought the students were better of writing their project papers in Malay rather than in English even among the non-Malay students. We made them write papers in English because we wanted them to improve their level of English.

Over the years, I have also read many business letters written by executives and managers from the industry, which were written in English. Those letters were so poorly written so much so that they would have been better of written in Malay instead, since I thought most of the writers had better command of Malay than English anyway.

I thought they should write in English o­nly when they are trying to communicate with foreigners but not with their fellow nationals. Incidentally, this practice is very common in other countries such as Thailand, Japan, Germany, and Finland.

I do not understand why business correspondence among Malaysians have to be written in English when practically everybody, especially among the younger executives and managers, can write and understand better in Malay than in English.

Admittedly, the deterioration in the standard of English among Malaysian students is o­ne of the side-effects of the national language policy.

With the coming of the era of globalisation in the late 1990s, there was a new realisation among the political leadership, that there is a renewed need for the nation to reemphasise the use of English, since our nation depends so much o­n international trade to obtain revenues. Thus, the nation needs to be competitive.

With the coming of the information age, there is a vast amount of knowledge that is available to the nation, and most of this is available in English in various print media including scientific and scholarly journals as well as those that are available at the touch of a button, i.e. via the Internet.

Hence, it is o­nly natural and logical that the current political leadership began to see the increase in importance of English that led them to wanting to bring back the use of the language as the second medium of instruction in schools.

But, this does not mean that the past political leaders have been wrong in their decision. There is no doubt that our nation still needs a common national language that is understood by all its citizens. Every nation does.

Therefore, the bringing back of English in schools and universities throughout the country has got to be done not at the expense of the national language. It has to be done is such a way that the national language can still be understood well by all the population while the standard of English is upgraded.

Thus, the modus operandi of how this can be achieved must be right. This is o­ne aspect the current leadership needs to be careful in their attempt to revive the standard of English among Malaysian students.

The fact of the matter is, knowing as many languages as possible is a good thing for anyone. When I was visiting China, I had wished that I could speak Mandarin.

I wish someday the government can make Mandarin a compulsory third language, or at least make it accessible to students in most if not all the schools and universities in the country. After all, Chinese Malaysians are the second largest ethnic group in the country and the Chinese people represent a substantial proportion of people o­n this planet. Also, China is now thought to be the next superpower of this century.

My daughter who is now studying in a university in California is learning Spanish since a large proportion of the people in the state speak Spanish. Most non-Malay Malaysians now are bilingual, many are trilingual; whereas most Malay Malaysians are monolingual.

Now that I am living in UAE, I also wished that I could speak Arabic. I therefore think most of the local universities in the country should follow the step taken by UPM in setting up the Faculty of Modern Languages a few years ago. This has given its students some options at learning other languages, if they so wish.