I have been reminded several times to go into Mahathir's blog by friends and acquaintances to vote against the recent decision to revert on a important aspect of our educational policy.
I did my part in the survey quite a while ago already. Not that I think it is going to make any difference anyway. The vote result currently is overwhelmingly against the current governmental decision, about 85% against. Hardly surprising.
Most voters taking part in this survey are English speaking and English reading.
By the way, like most people, I am convinced that the policy is politically motivated as both Barisan and Pakatan continue to struggle to woo the masses. And quite a bit of these people are not English speaking and English writing people. Strangely, this same people reject the usage of English for Science and Mathematics for the sake of their children, thinking they can't cope. I have always believed that a language is best acquired by its usage, not so much as a subject to be learnt.
My take is that the implementation year 2012 is chosen to enable the Government time to make a flip flop change just in case the mood changes. My bet is that eventually, it will turn out to be Bahasa for everything in Primary and the use of English as a medium for Science and Mathematics in Secondary.
Anyhow, there will be a group of people who will not be affected either way. They will be children and grandchildren of Mahathir. Jack Lim, Badawi, Larry Poon, Khairy, Liew Sip Chon, Rocky's Bru, Goh Kheng Peow, Haris Ibrahim, NS Tan, Niamah, Rick Low, Andrew Kong, Peter, Choon Heng, and so on and so.
I have no idea how big is this group, maybe 10% of the Malaysian population? Maybe less?
You can bet your ass that regardless of how the policy would turn out, they (we) are going to make sure that their (our) children will acquire proficiency in spoken and written English during the 1st 17 years of their lives. They will probably enter English medium colleges and English medium universities, here and abroad. Their (our) children will also be fairly proficient in the Chinese language acquiring this skill in a Chinese primary school and be proficient in the Malay language for obvious reasons.
Proficiency in English will be acquired by the daily usage of the language by reading, speaking and writing it.
The change to an all Malay medium instructions in schools will adversely impact on:
1. Children of current parents who do not read, speak and write English. This account for a large number of people, mostly of the rural population. They will very likely be handicapped coming out into the real world and competing internationally as well as locally.
2. The Country. Educated people especially the English speaking ones will continue to leave the country to settle elsewhere in large numbers.
How sad.
2 comments:
They are all missing the point. It has nothing to do with which language is more important or what is the national language. the point is:
1. English proficiency and quality of our teachers
2. English is the main language of Science and Maths, is is the mastery of science and maths not the language.
3. Vernacular school children will continue to be at a disadvantage if English is not used. What is the point of doing well in your native language during primary school only to struggle and fail miserably at College/University levels?
4. Mandarin and Bahasa can continue to be an important language as a subject by itself and used in everyday life. In fact Chinese is becoming very important as China starts to grow economically and will one day be the largest economy in the world.
As usual politicians ignore the root cause of the problem and do the right thing but only seek to tackle problems in the way that can gather more votes for them.
I am seriously considering private schools... any to recommend?
Until and unless we get rid of all vernacular school, these issues will never end.
From what I heard, lots of Chinese are supporting the change back to National language so that Chinese and Tamil schools can teach in the native language. It's a tough choice being a Cina-pek but we cannot fight for Malaysian equality when we want to maintain such vernacular system from young. And the blardy BN ppl will always use this as an excuse.
And whatever language they are going to use as a medium, the teachers must be good at it. Not necessary as good as a language teacher but must understand at least the terms they are teaching!
Good luck kids...
ah_heng
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