Education Minister Musa Mohamed's reply to the Dewan Rakyat on the language issue yesterday was ripped apart by DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang who said it was "studded with educational misconceptions and fallacies".

In a statement today, Lim said Musa failed to state whether the imminent policy was being decided as an educational issue or a political one.

In addition, Musa did not explain why the issue "has been allowed to become such a divisive national question as to elicit threats to use the Internal Security Act and allegations of 'extremists', 'anti-national' and 'traitors'".

The education minister was replying to 32 questions posted to him from members of parliament on the controversial move to use English to teach Science and Mathematics.

That Musa would answer in one go all 32 questions on an issue of such immense public concern was scoffed at by Lim last Friday, who had urged the speaker to refuse Musa permission to do so.

However, what transpired today further angered Lim and led him to charge Musa of double contempt "of Parliament and the people's legitimate concerns over the educational future of their children" for the minister's answer to all questions only constituted six pages.

Confused

Dissecting Musa's reply yesterday, Lim said it showed the minister is still confused over the objective of using English to teach the two subjects, namely whether it was to raise the standard of English proficiency, or those of Mathematics and Science, or to produce "bilinguals who are academically better than monolinguals" as stated by the minister last week.

He also said the studies that Musa presented in the parliament yesterday to support the new policy were inappropriate and irrelevant as they were about the use of a dominant language (English) by minority groups.

"These four studies are all on the effects of bilingual education and academic performance of immigrant (language-minority) students in the United States but not on White (language-majority) students," he said.

"In the US, the educational controversy is between English-only education for the immigrant minorities or bilingual education defined as ones in which students with limited English proficiency (LEP) are taught using at least some of their native languages in the initial years," he added.

Lim also charged that Musa's reply had repudiated the report and recommendations of a special committee haded by Curriculum Development Centre director Dr Sharifah Maimunah Syed Zin set up last year to raise the level of English proficiency.

The former opposition leader challenged the minister to reveal the findings of the report which, according to Lim, never proposed such a policy.

Trilingualism

In addition, Lim wondered if the minister were acquainted with trilingualism.

"Chinese schools pioneered trilingualism, taking full advantage of the country's multilingual and multicultural diversity to leverage them into greater national competitiveness in the era of globalisation".

As of today, the issue is yet to be discussed in the cabinet, confirmed Musa.

Mahathir had said that his ministers would have to wait until he has finished gathering feedback on the issue from the grassroots.

Lim, however, promised more incoming salvo from him as soon as he gets his hands on the Hansard of Musa's reply.