The recent debate on the teaching of Science and Maths in English has brought out the worst in many Malaysians. Many groups have even released and published research papers putting forth their points of view.

Most of these research papers highlight the failure of the policy, citing recent years' UPSR, PMR and SPM results, and conclude that students stand to gain if they are educated in their mother tongues.

This year's UPSR results suggest that more students are now choosing to answer questions in English. I think the policy is fine, just that its implementation needs to be improved and enhanced.

The roundtable discussion organised by the Education Ministry is now reaching it's final stage. In typical Malaysian give-and-take style, a compromise is being worked out whereby Science and Maths would only be taught in English in secondary school. Personally, I cannot see the benefit of such a system.

Fed up with the Education Ministry and political groups, a group of parents have formed the ‘Parent Action Group for Education’ (Page) to support the teaching of Science and Maths in English at the secondary level. However, Page is made up of parents around the Klang Valley, therefore their views may be just of those in urban areas.

We are also currently facing a very serious threat from Chinese education group, Dong Jiao Zong. The group has threatened to launch a massive protest should the government decide to continue with its policy of teaching Science and Maths in English. They claim that the teaching of these subjects in English will threaten Chinese education.

They also continue to champion so-called mother tongue education but conveniently ignore the fact that Mandarin is not the mother tongue of a majority of Chinese Malaysians. The same applies to the proponents of Tamil education in this country.

If their claims are true enough, Dong Jiao Zong should undertake research on the impact of teaching in Chinese medium on all other subjects to thousands of Malay and Indian students in Chinese schools.

More importantly, if they are real defenders of mother tongue education, they should be principled enough to bar non-Chinese students from being enrolled in Chinese schools and advice non-Chinese parents to enroll their children in Tamil and national schools.

This threat of massive protest only confirms that education groups like Dong Jiao Zong are a greater threat to the peace and security of this country than an education policy. How irresponsible of them to issue threats to the government!

Political parties, obviously afraid of losing the support of the Chinese, have so far, I believe, not responded to this threat.

I personally think that the people, instead of some racist education groups, should be engaged in the decision making. Most research papers undertaken are skewed to reflect the preference and opinions of parties with vested interest.

So it is highly unlikely that the views presented by these interest groups reflect the true wishes of the rakyat , especially parents and future parents-to-be.

I call for a referendum to be undertaken throughout the country to decide on this issue once and for all. I think there has not been any referendum undertaken in Malaysia for a long time.

It's about time we do it and not leave such an important decision to the whims and fancies of politicians, race-based education groups and other pressure groups.