YOURSAY | ‘Idiocy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.’

Stupid! S'wak CM censures past education policy

Anonymous_1421406986: A very visionary comment from Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem.

It’s not too late to give equal importance to Bahasa Malaysia and English. Even the Johor sultan has expressed his preference for the return of the English language.

Everything our politicians do is only intended to draw a larger number of voters for themselves and their party, not for the future of the present or coming generations.

If they want more Malay votes, just destroy the English language and promote an indigenous language or start building houses of worship, pay exclusive attention to just one race for tertiary and job intakes and send students overseas to specialise in only religious studies or build more stay-in religious schools.

Rupert16: Yes, it was indeed foolish or for political expediency of our government then and now to promote Bahasa Malaysia at the expense of English.

Mastering languages should not be seen as a zero-sum game. It is still not too late to change things around by kicking out the current Umno government, come the 14th general election (GE14).

David Dass: In France and Japan, scientific publications are translated within days of publication. European languages are rooted in Latin and Greek.

Members of scientific communities in virtually every advanced country are proficient in English and can read scientific papers in English.

But the problem is more fundamental than that. The formation of the modern mind requires individuals to be connected with the world via the Internet and that requires English language proficiency.

University education is largely self-learning, and textbooks and 99 percent of books in our libraries are in English. Our private sector functions in English. English is the language of international trade and diplomacy.

We cannot train lawyers, engineers, scientists, architects, accountants and economists without using English. All our universities use a combination of English and Malay or English exclusively.

Unfortunately, the neglect of English in schools leaves many of our young ill-prepared for higher education.

OMG!: A few simple questions will penetrate even the thickest skulls:

1. Has making Bahasa Malaysia (BM) the language of government, business and education really helped to unite the people? Provide statistical evidence based on random samples of at least 100,000 people, conducted by a professional firm.

2. Has the continued provision of special privileges, long after the original date of 1972 set down for their discontinuance or amendment, been a major cause of racial polarisation? Another survey question in that 100,000 sample.

3. What is the audited wealth of the top 100 leaders in Umno, MCA, MIC, Gerakan and Sabah/Sarawak BN coalition partners?

This will give detailed clues as to issues of language, corruption and bad governance here. We already have a good guess as to the answers.

Goldee: It’s the vocabularies and the method of teaching that matter, not the language.

Perhaps Malaysia has not reached the mark due to lack of qualified trained teachers and educators. I believe Indonesia uses Bahasa Indonesia as its medium of teaching and is very successful with this.

The problem with Malaysia is that the politicians have no idea how we can make use of the Malay language to elevate us to world class. Secondly, there are a lack of words for science and mathematics, which might be our weakness.

Thirdly, politicians are playing politics to gain popularity and haven’t the slightest idea on implementing Bahasa Malaysia as the medium of teaching.

Anonymous_1372232732: It seems the commentators all pretend they don't know who were the two main culprits who introduced and implemented this Bahasa supremacy policy, just because both of them are in the opposition camp.

The beauty is also that none of their children had been sent to sekolah kebangsaan at all.

Falcon: To move forward, should Sarawak start by kicking out the alleged racists and silo-visioned peninsula teachers and surrogates, as a start?

Paul Warren: Adenan is so brave to talk now. There was a time when education was one of the taboo subjects that could send you to prison under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

Whitecat: A lot of water has flowed under the bridge without any reversal. Are you going with the flow or do you have the cojones to do the right thing?

Don't forget, idiocy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Anonymous_1423808262: Adenan is surely not afraid of the groundswell of negative opinions against him from Peninsular Malay nationalists.

Never mind, he's protected by Sarawakian blowpipes.

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