Three former teachers' union leaders offered conflicting views on the future role of Tamil and Chinese languages under the proposed 10 + 2 SPM ruling.

education examination spm stpm scholarship biasiswa 090609 01 While two of them feared the possible demise of the mother tongue languages, the other dismissed this as an emotional response.

He assured that both Tamil and Mandarin are living mother tongues that will not die off even with this new policy.

The Education Ministry had stated that students would be only allowed to take a maximum of 10 subjects from 2010 to prevent overloading.

The six core subjects are Bahasa Melayu, English, Islamic Education or Moral Studies, History, Mathematics and Science and four other elective subjects to make the total 10.

Following pressure from the public, the government announced that Mandarin, Chinese Literature, Tamil, Tamil Literature and Arabic can be taken into consideration if they fall within the maximum 10 subjects allowed and if students want to use the results to become language teachers in either Tamil, Chinese or Arabic.

Students would not sit for the papers

Former National Union of Tamil School Teachers Malaysia (NUTSTM) president Shahul Hamid Mydin Shah told Malaysiakini that turning Tamil and Tamil Literature as 'no economic value' subjects will only discourage students from sitting for the papers.

NONE He said the new proposal means the two subjects cannot be taken into consideration by the government for its scholarship programme and for entering into university.

Hamid is also not convinced with the latest announcement.

He said the Education Ministry recruits only about 300 Tamil teachers annually, and students who take the two Tamil subjects would lose out as they cannot take up teaching.

He pointed out that the students also cannot take up any other professional course as they would have wasted two of their precious 10 SPM subjects on the languages hoping to be vernacular teachers.

Hamid felt that the cosmetic changes from 10 to 12 subjects due to public pressure would only hasten the demise of the subjects.

"The fact is students would not take subjects that have no economical value to their career prospects," he added.

Sending the wrong message

NONE Also expressing concern, National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) former secretary-general S Sundralingam said the government is sending the wrong message by restricting the subjects.

He asked why the government is suddenly limiting the choice of subjects and denying students their right to education opportunities.

Sundralingam said imposing conditions and restricting knowledge of mother tongues would only cause shortage of manpower in the areas of journalism of vernacular newspapers and as Chinese and Tamil court interpreters.

"The government should respect the hereditary principles of the respective races and not restrict it," he advised.

No room for emotional outbursts

However, another veteran educationist and unionist N Sivasubramaniam thinks otherwise.

The former NUTP secretary-general and Cuepacs (Congress Union of Employees in Public and Civil Services) president said there is no room for emotional outbursts on this issue.

mtuc suhakam memo 240205 sivasubramaniam "We can never solve this problem by being emotional as the future needs of the children have to be taken into consideration.

"What is needed is rational thinking and then coming to the conclusion as to what is best (in the educational field) for the present generation of students," he argued.

Asked bout the fear that mother tongue languages might die off, Siva brushed this aside.

"Both Chinese and Tamil languages would never die off as they are living languages and will continue to grow.

"Nothing can be achieved by politicising this issue. The future of the student's entry into university and his or her (future) job prospect is more important," he said.