The mastery of the English language would in no way belittle the role of Bahasa Malaysia as the official and national language of the country, a Gerakan leader said today.

The party's vice-president Dr S Vijayaratnam said in a press statement that it defied logic to imagine that emphasising the English language goes against patriotism and advised politicians not to play around with this issue and raise questions of nationalism.

He added that serious attention and not just lip service, should be directed towards the improvement of the standard of the language in the Malaysian education system.

Vijayaratnam called on the Ministry of Education to take definite and concrete measures to address this issue before it descended to an irreparable state.

"More subjects in school, particularly the sciences, have to be taught in English. English literature should be re-introduced as a prominent subject, and students encouraged to take it up for their PMR and SPM examinations," he said.

He added that this would be a less painful way of emphasising and inculcating not only the importance but also the beauty of the language.

"And if all else fails, the language has to be made compulsory for the passing of these examinations," Vijayaratnam said.

'Mistake of history'

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has repeatedly stressed the need for Malaysians to master the English language in this global era of information technology.

The Federation of Peninsular Malay Students (GPMS), which recently hogged the media limelight for its counter claims to Suqiu's 17-point appeal made before the 1999 general election, had also suggested that efforts to improve students' command of the language be made a national agenda.

Its president Shuhaimi Ibrahim was recently quoted as saying that the problem of poor command of English is a "mistake of history", and that political will on the part of the national leadership was needed to rectify the situation.

He also proposed the revival of English-medium schools.