KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 16 — In the latest classroom language row, a pro-English parent lobby group today urged school heads to speak with the parents of schoolchildren first before setting the medium of instruction for science and math subjects.
The pro-English Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE) said it has been receiving complaints from some parents that the school heads have ignored their wishes and switched the language policy for the two subjects to Bahasa Malaysia (BM) despite a circular from the education ministry on the issue earlier this month.“The Education Act 1996 states that pupils are to be educated according to the wishes of their parents,” PAGE chairman, Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim, said in a statement today.
She attributed the problem to the November 4 circular that detailed the language policy switch from the existing English to the national language from January next year.
She said that the circular did not indicate a specific mechanism to decide on the choice of language, giving rise to confusion on the language selection.
“The decision should instead be based on the language the students of the school learn best with, the language most used to answer exam scripts, the overall percentage pass in BM and English and the number of students proceeding to tertiary level,” she said.
Noor Azimah pointed out that the education director-general also agrees that school heads cannot insist that everyone learns in Bahasa Malaysia only.
“Therefore, we urge parents to engage with the principal and PTA heads of their respective schools,” she said.
She also called on parents to do their part and write in to formally ask for their children to be taught in English.
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PAGE: Ask parents before fixing maths, science language
November 16, 2011
Posts Tagged ‘PPSMI
PPSMI, or the BN government’s policy to teach Mathematics and Science in English, has now broken into areas that have totally diverged from their original path. The rather haphazard way our Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister, has irked educationists, parents and political rivals alike. It speaks volumes on his capabilities in managing one of the vital pillars to nation building.
From the very beginning, the decision to stop using English as a medium of instruction was wrapped in a mist of uncertainty. There is no certain answer as to why the Education ministry came to such a decision. Originally, the statements points to a UNESCO study that encouraged the use of the child’s mother tongue as a medium of instruction.
This statement was then dropped and emphasis was placed on uplifting and maintaining the status of Bahasa Melayu as the official medium of instruction in schools. This then led to a rather nationalistic view that PPSMI was bad for the nation. Yet, when pressed by the public that parents should be allowed the option to choose which language they can have the children study in, the ministry stated that it was a logistical nightmare to have such options in schools.
But at the end of the day, the problem is two prong. Teachers are poorly equipped to teach in English and a large populace of Malays do not take to learning English easily. So the Muhyiddin decision to get rid of PPSMI was both a practical and political decision. Practical since diverting money to training teachers would definitely cause a dent in their plans to divert public funds towards more “important” needs. Secondly, in the coming 13th General Election, the Malay vote will prove decisive for BN to retain its hold on the federal government.
Failure of the Education ministry to plan
Indeed, PPSMI has exposed the soft under-belly of the Education Ministry. It has failed to strategically plan the training of teachers to teach in English. Instead, we see abuse of funds diverted to failed initiatives such as the Smart School projects that have been so prominently highlighted in the Auditor General ‘s report for 2010.
PPSMI has also exposed the disdain the Malay leaders have towards anything remotely connected to English. For a majority group weaned on the stories that the British were brutal task-masters and anything Western should be treated as fruits of the devil, it is small wonder there would be opposition from Malays that reside in the heartland and kampungs.
Interestingly enough, Malay parents brought up in the urban areas support the use of English as a medium of instruction, even if it means only two subjects are taught in English. There is no fear amongst this group that their children will be less Malay or desecrate the sanctity of Bahasa Melayu by studying in English. This held true for all Malays studying in the 1950s since all schools back then used English as a medium of instruction. Most of Malaysia’s forefathers were English educated, thus the medium of instruction cannot dent the pride one has for being Malaysian.
Parents have more rights than anyone else including the government
Given the choice, Malaysians want to decide what is best for their children and this desire must be honored by the government. Why can’t parents be responsible for the future of their own children? What makes the government know best? Is this not how a “world class” or “best democracy in the world” should function? Prime Minister Najib Razak should really remember his own words in this aspect.
Truly, the years of “what government thinks best” are over. Citizens are wise and knowledgeable enough to decide their own future and that of their kids. The total elimination of PPSMI by the government shows the complete disdain the administration has towards the very people who placed them in power.
Good policies drive the review of serious issues and concerns and propose new ways forward for adoption at the national level, and create new and positive pathways. The PPSMI was a good public policy introduced by the current prime minister, when he was the minister of education.
Rather, lamely and unfortunately, before a good and proper study of the performance of the outcome and impact of the programme could be had, and mainly because of political pressure from conservative Malay groups, there was a policy reversal without a good and rational scientific basis. We have no First Principles, as argued by Wan Saiful Wan Jan.
The current Education Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, in seeking to play to the Malay middle ground gallery, affirmed that a policy continuation of the PSSMI is not possible, nor desirable.
Allow me to review this policy posture, and caution that BN will lose the middle ground of urban voters for this extensive policy reversal in its attempt to remain popular with the rural countryside. It is even not in their interest; but, they do not know any better!
The Malay countryside is split between the more religious, conservative and insular members and the more moderate, progressive and nationalistic members in the peninsula. PAS and Umno will battle and seek to influence this electorate on all related issues of religion and race.
However, the countryside in Sabah and Sarawak has other serious issues, such as Native Customary Rights (NCR) land, deforestation, and corruption issues to deal with. Therefore, the needs and concerns of the national countryside may not be similar in terms of either felt or real needs. A differential policy may therefore be beheficial to all!
In the every nation, it is the urban and the connected, defined within ‘the Global Village’ of the connected and committed, who are knowledgeable about these issues, whether you find them in Tahrir Square, or with the Occupiers of Wall Street, or even the monks who march in Burma. They are the community of the connected who want to be included in the decision-making for good and participative governance of any nation and the globe.
Organisations such as the Parents Action Group for Education (Page) are made up of and led by modern leaders who are rational and articulate and who will define the issues and concerns for the majority within the urban landscape of Malaysia.
Therefore, it would be foolhardy and downright foolish of Muhyiddin to “continue to argue a case that has little legitimacy or rational validity”. It would fall within my category of an ‘idiocratic policy;’ one that has no rational basis but is argued on false premises, and which cannot withstand good and honest research and critique. Wan Saiful’s is one such critique!
What are then are real problems with English in Malaysia today, regardless of whether science and mathematics are taught in English or Malay? The real and honest admission we must make is that:
English is the global lingua franca of science and technology worldwide today and no nation will contend with or deny that. Our real innovation and high income economy cannot be driven by an agenda of learning science and mathematics in the Malay language! Any serious science and technology research requires the libraries of the world, which are all in English, and purely in terms of translations, we can never catch up in a hundred years.
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Pendulum decision-making!
KJ John
Nov 8, 2011 – Malaysiakini
Changing power equation in Umno
The power equation in Umno seems to have tilted again, this time back to Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is expected to face a strong challenge for the Umno presidency from his deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin, next year.
The indications were clear after influential former premier Mahathir Mohamad publicly chided Muhyiddin over an educational policy, suggesting that Malaysians could call on Najib to overturn the DPM’s decision if they found it unacceptable.
Muhyiddin had given strong warning that he wanted to abolish PPSMI or the teaching and learning of Mathematics and Science in English, and revert the medium of instruction to Bahasa Malaysia.
Many accused him of of sabre-rattling and trying to score brownie points with the Malay electorate and Umno members ahead of the party’s December annual assembly. Indeed his rhetoric to stand up for the use of Bahasa Malaysia as being the patriotic thing do served to compound his racist image.
But worse than that, he stepped on Mahathir’s toes.
NOV 3 — Malay is not the language of intellectual discourse in Malaysia. It would not surprise any Malaysian to be told that Cabinet holds its meetings predominantly in English.
It definitely won’t shake the foundations of our senses to know that in the private sector here, those with better English move to better positions. People with impeccable English get to the top.
Or that state-owned companies would go into paralysis if they were ordered to write all local documents and correspondences in Malay, and hold all meetings exclusively in the national language.
Or in government offices, senior officers parade their finer English and probably drop in terms and phrases in the Queen’s language to impress subordinates and to underline the ability gap.
Politicians with poor English are left to become rent-seekers in Umno, not earmarked to be the future of the party.
The biggest problem in resolving the medium-of-instruction debate in Malaysian schools is not the love or disdain for knowledge, children and teachers, but rather the apparent absence of honesty in the issue.
Doing the right thing for the most number of Malaysians does not turn out to be the priority. Instead, what prevails is picking sides and hoping their side wins by fair means or foul.
Expectedly it is done by largely ignoring the errors of history and the facts on the ground. Arguments which don’t support one side do not exist to that side.
Hovering over this country, the hangman’s noose: Malaysian education has been on a steady path of decline for the last three decades.
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Lying in two languages: English in our schools
November 03, 2011 – MI
During the past year, there have been three controversies arising from regressive policy decisions of the Ministry of Education which have set our educational system backwards. The three controversies revolve around
- The teaching of Science and Mathematics for Fourth Form students in Bahasa Malaysia instead of English
- The use of the Interlok book as a compulsory text in the schools
- The decision to make history a compulsory subject as well as a pass requirement for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM)
All three – though simmering for some years now – are rapidly coming to a head during the tenure of the Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin as the Minister of Education.
The controversies are not over minor or insignificant issues in the national education system. They are not sparked off by politicians with an axe to grind or by groups wanting to score points against the minister. They do not relate to narrow communal interests nor are they espoused by extremist organizations having their own agendas.
Rather they are the concern of parents and educators from all communities at grassroots as well as at mainstream society level.
They involve important pedagogical principles and ultimately, they raise the key question of whether the future of our younger generation is being made the sacrificial lamb for narrow political and bureaucratic interests.
Upon their wise resolution will rest the ability of our school children to compete with the rest of the world as well as the knowledge that they receive at school which will shape their adult mindset and values.
…Parochial politician or principled leader
In all of these developments, we have seen vacillation and procrastination by the Minister of Education rather than real and visionary leadership. Instead of ensuring that our national educational system can provide the right kind of educational knowledge and skills, Muhyiddin, and the bureaucratic-academic-political coalition of policy makers advising him and calling the shots, are burdening our school children with language handicaps and distorted views of the world, our society and themselves that will negatively impact the children and the country.
There is still time for the minister to reverse the two already announced policy decisions and to ensure that the history teaching reform process has substance and is not an exercise in futility.
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Our school children as sacrificial lambs
Written by Dr Lim Teck Ghee
1 November 2011 – CPI
THE abolition of PPSMI, the teaching of Maths and Science in English, will destroy the scientific future of Malaysia.
I understand that this is being done under the misguided intention of improving the learning of Maths and Science in Malay schools, by teaching in the native tongue of the students.
However, what has not been taken into account, and is clearly not understood by those making this decision, is that Science and Maths are both conducted internationally in English.
I am a psychological researcher in Malaysia who grew up in London.
I have seen the level of English competence of Malaysian academics when I attended local and international conferences.
Sometimes, I was shocked at the laughable level of English used by local academics at these conferences.
It is embarrassing to watch them mangle the English language in their presentations.
Some academics even insist on giving their lectures in Malay to an international audience.
This was an absurd thing to do, since not one foreigner in the audience would have understood their lecture.
A Malaysian academic cannot build a career in Science or Maths on the international scene without being able to write research papers well in scientific and technical English.
It is already clear that many local academics are not able to do this effectively.
How much worse would the situation get were Maths and Science to be no longer taught in English?
The ONLY way for local researchers to become competent in the use of technical and scientific English is for them to be taught all technical and scientific subjects in English.
Only then will they have the chance to become familiar with the terminology and means of expression used, in such contexts, in the English Language.
The Malaysian Government has expressed its intention of making Malaysia a high income country.
Personally, I very much doubt whether this can be achieved if Malaysia’s scientific and technical talent is locked out from the international scientific and technical community by being unable to converse in scientific English.
Malaysia, without PPSMI, will become an irrelevance to the scientific world.
There are two sides to this problem in the use of scientific English.
If Malaysian students do not grow up familiar with scientific English, not only will they become academics who cannot write publishable research papers in English but they will also become academics who cannot read the published literature in English.
Thus, not only will they not be able to contribute to science internationally they will also not be able to stay current in their fields.
The result of this will be that Malaysia will fall further behind the world in all scientific and technical subjects.
Malaysia has potential in Science and Maths as there are bright, young students here.
However, Malaysia will never reach that potential if PPSMI is abandoned.
Don’t destroy the future of Malaysia: Reinstate PPSMI.
VALENTINE CAWLEY,
Kuala Lumpur.…source
Don’t destroy future
November 1, 2011 – the Star (Letters)
Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin reiterated the decision to abolish the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English was final, but critics of the move which include many Malays who have accused of playing to the political gallery said it heralded the death knell for Umno.
“It is the nail in the coffin for Umno,” Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim, who heads parents group PAGE. She stressed this was her personal comment and that PAGE would issue an official reaction soon.
Indeed, with the 13th general election looming, Muhyddin who is also Education minister is believed to have trotted out the controversial decision in a bid to win the favour of the Malay electorate. By and large, the majority of Malays want the two subjects to be taught in their mother tongue, but not all are against giving parents the option to choose English if they believed it was better for their children.
“In 2009, when it was first announced there was no negative reaction. The majority accepted it well. I presented it in the Cabinet, everyone agreed, I brought it to Parliament, everyone including the opposition at that time, agreed. But now because there are some groups opposed to it, the opposition want to jump on the bandwagon,” Muhyiddin said on Thursday.
Fear of competition
Muhyiddin also closed the door on the PPSMI option to parents, effectively forcing all students to learn the subject in Bahasa Malaysia, citing ‘kacau bilauan’ or unnecessary disturbance if a dual system was allowed.
He is due to unveil the full details of the new plan, expected to begin in January 2012, on Friday.
Critics, who have pointed our that the Form 3 and Form 5 results have shown the benefit of using lingua franca English as the medium of instruction, have argued Muhyiddin’s autocratic decision to disallow the PPSMI option reeked of Umno’s traditional “fear of competition”.
“What if those who learn Math and Science in English outperform those who learn it in Malay? For Umno, the first thing they want to do is to protect themselves from the fallout. They don’t want to be embarrassed by being proven to have made a disastrous decision for the nation. That supercedes everything including the well being of our kids including Malay kids too,” PKR veteran Eddie Wong told Malaysia Chronicle.
Making another pitch for PPSMI
PETALING JAYA: The Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE) today submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak in a fortified attempt to halt the abolishment of the Teaching and Learning of Science and Maths in English (PPSMI).
Also included in the memorandum were Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, secretary-general Rosli Mohamed in the Education Ministry, ministers in the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) as well as National Key Economic Area (NKEA) education director Tengku Azian Shahriman.
The PPSMI controversy has been raging for the past two years since Muhyiddin announced its replacement with another policy of upholding the Malay language and strenghtening the command of English (MBMMBI).
The uproar sparked by the policy reversal has continued to this day with even students now joining in the protests.
Yesterday, Muhyiddin confirmed that students will not be able to choose between English or Malay as the medium of instruction for the learning of Science and Maths.
In its third memorandum to Najib since its formation, PAGE pointed out that evidence of the PPSMI’s success could be seen in the UPSR, PMR and SPM results over the years.
“The highest passing rate in Science and Maths was in 2007 while the lowest was in 2001 before the PPSMI was implemented,” said PAGE chairman, Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim.
“The highest passing rate in English was recorded in 2008 while there have been no signs of any adverse effect on the passing rate in Bahasa Malaysia.”
False accusations
The memorandum was further accompanied by figures and charts which also showed a marked improvement in the performance in Science and Maths among rural students.
PAGE noted that these findings have debunked the government’s claim that the PPSMI had weakened the performance of students in these areas as compared to their urban peers.
“PPSMI has not only boosted the level of English but also the performance of students in rural areas,” Azimah emphasied. “The false accusations of extremist groups must be halted because their assumptions will only jeopardise the dignity of our race and country.”
Azimah reminded the government that the PPSMI Facebook page had garnered over 100,00 supporters while 56,000 more had signed a petition in the last two weeks.
Research conducted by PAGE’s newest partner, Jaring Melayu Muda (JMM), also showed that 55% of parents and 79% of students surveyed in rural areas are in favour of the PPSMI so as to enjoy the same future opportunities as those in the urban areas.
PPSMI should be retained
IT’S disappointing that the views of a significant, if not the majority of Malaysian parents who want the continuation of the PPSMI policy of teaching Maths and Science in the English, is not being heard.
We ask how the Education Ministry can say in one breath that it wants to increase the importance and teaching of the English Language and in the next breath, insist on teaching vital subjects like Maths and Science in Bahasa Malaysia?
The ministry should be consistent with the national vision to make Malaysia a developed country by 2020.
We have to transform our people’s psyche to strengthen our national language and at the same time, to pursue the competence in the international language which is, whether we like it or not, the English Language.
Where would our leaders and our country be today if not for our current, albeit declining, proficiency in English?
How far would Malaysia have developed if not for the past wisdom of promoting the teaching and use of English?
By rejecting the sound policy of PPSMI, we will be taking a regressive step backwards!
We would jeopardise our aim to achieve the aspirations of Vision 2020.
Worse still, we will create class distinctions and widen the already worsening income gap between the rural and urban populations and the poor and the rich citizens of the country.
The Government is obliged to consult the voters more widely and substantively on this very important national issue or risk national progress and the people’s support.
We therefore appeal to the Education Minister to uphold the PPSMI and to make the necessary announcement as soon as possible to avoid chaos and more confusion.
TAN SRI RAMON NAVARATNAM,
Chairman,
Centre of Public Policy Studies.…source
PPSMI should be retained
November 1, 2011 – the Star (Letters)
