Not again

I expected it. Then, what’s new? I am talking about the decision made by the Education Ministry that future Science and Maths examinations are to be in dual languages.

After producing a generation of graduates who are not proficient in the English language making them almost unemployable in the private sector; when the former Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir, announced that the two subjects would be taught in English, many parents were hopeful.

As a direct result, my primary school going nephews and nieces have improved their English tremendously with this policy change, and are very comfortable in speaking the language now. Children do learn very fast.

Unfortunately, in this country it is ever so common to see policies reversed in mid-stream because of political consideration.There is no commitment to see them through once obstacles surface. While the politicians score points , only God knows the damage done to future generations.

I understand the plight of our rural children, some of them can’t even speak Bahasa properly, what more English? This should be seen as a challenge actually.Many members of the older generation only knew “yes” or “no” when they first started learning English, because of the persistence of the colonial authorities, over time they became fluent in the language.

Instead of the usual flip flop approach, we should stay the course. Why didn’t we do it progressively in the first place?

Give the urban schools an earlier target , while the rural schools a slightly longer time frame. However, by certain time, all schools must do the two subjects totally in English. Period.

By giving this dual language option, many teachers will take the easy way out by teaching the subjects in their own mother tongue, this defeats the purpose and a step backward.

There is no point in screaming about having a good command of the English language to be competitive in the globalised market place . It’s understood. The Education Minister himself knows this very well by sending his daughter to study in Australia.

If he has faith in the English language education, he should also share this with all Malaysians, especially with the rural parents. We are only talking about two subjects here!

The parents only want their children to have a good job, and they know a good command of English or Mandarin will help them towards this.

Even little Brunei knows that only the English language can prepare their young to be competitive by teaching most of the subjects in the language. Now, their young citizens tend to have a better command of the language than our young people.

While we have gone to space, we can’t ignore our own planet. We need to move on fast into the globalised market place of the 21st century. To do this we must stay focused.