Whether Science and Maths should be taught in English should be decided solely by considering the welfare of the students and the country.
Our people should know how to read, write and speak the national language but, at the same time, to gain knowledge, they should learn and use English – Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
In 2003, before he stepped down as Prime Minister in 2004, Dr Mahathir made a major policy change in terms of education.
It was considered drastic at that time and made over the opposition of both Malay and vernacular language advocates.
He basically decreed that Science and Mathematics should be taught in English simply because that was the fastest way for Malaysians to access the rapidly changing developments in those fields.
It was a major change of position for Dr Mahathir himself, who as education minister in the mid-70s and subsequently prime minister from 1981 pushed through major reforms which saw the education system being transformed from English-based to Malay-based.
The parallel development was the evolution of vernacular education systems in Chinese, mainly, and in Tamil as well as Islamic religious schools, leading basically to four separate educational systems in the country.
But the edict by Dr Mahathir was a bold one and cut across all the educational systems to make it compulsory to teach Science and Maths in English in all of them.
Six years later, a generation of students have passed through the system and the vast majority of them have preferred to answer questions in English even though they were given options to answer in other languages.
Now, six years later, one wonders why there is even a need to re-think this process – the students have spoken by opting to answer in English, and there have been noticeable improvements in the quality of English. The infrastructure has been built. Why destroy all that now?
Have we not already suffered enough through a widespread decline of English among our students to the extent that many of our graduates from local universities are unemployable because of the poor quality of their English?
Now there is a proposal to make a pass in English compulsory before a candidate gets the Sjil Pelajaran Malaysia (Malaysian certificate of education) or SPM certificate. The ministry has invited public comments on this.
The proposal only adds confusion to the issue. Let’s settle the outstanding issue of whether Science and Maths should be taught in English, and then we can talk about another.
It’s vitally important to keep the two separate and not link them together in an attempt to come to some sort of compromise solution.
A pass in English should only be made compulsory after there is a huge effort to improve the quality of English taught in schools. Otherwise it would needlessly penalise.
It helps to state the underlying problem with respect to English: the quality of English has deteriorated so much that students can’t speak, read or write English and therefore are also unable to plug into the avenues which increase knowledge and competence in all areas.
Dr Mahathir’s solution was simple, elegant and practical – teach science and maths in English. That improves usage of the language, gives students the key necessary terms, and the tools to plug into the unfolding developments in the area.
The language purists, being purists and in many cases language extremists, insist that English can only be taught by teaching English such as grammar and literature and that subjects must be taught in the mother tongue.
But they pointedly ignore the practical aspect: language must be used if competence is to be gained.
Teaching Science and Maths in English ensures that English is used and not just learned, which will be the case if you increase the time for teaching English. That is a crucial difference.
None of this will be at the expense of the national language, Malay, or even Chinese or Tamil. All the other subjects are being taught in these languages, and students will gain more than sufficient proficiency in them.
Vitally, with the change already in place for six years, the students have also had an avenue to improve their English skills. It will be cruel to take that away from future generations. Give them the local languages but give them English, too.
There must come a time when we make decisions based on what is best for our children and our country – nothing and no one else matters more.
Our children will benefit im mensely from a good command of English, while a good command of English will help the country connect to the world and access all the knowledge and attendant benefits.
To clinch the argument, let’s quote Dr Mahathir again. This is what he said at an international conference on English last year in Kuala Lumpur: “Our people should know how to read, write and speak the national language, but at the same time, to gain knowledge, they should learn and use English.”
Narrow, parochial considerations of language lobbyists and extremists have no place. A pragmatic decision must be made. Not only must Science and Maths continue to be taught in English, more measures must be devised to improve English usage and capability.
A pass grade in English to get an SPM qualification may be a bit premature in the absence of concrete measures to improve English quality.
Certainly such a measure should not be used to barter away the teaching of Science and Maths in English.
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