YOURSAY | Don't gamble away our children's future

YOURSAY | ’Do what is right for the future of our kids and nation.

MP SPEAKS | DLP guidelines: A step in the right direction

Coward: Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek, telling schools they have to organise Science and Mathematics classes in Bahasa Malaysia if there is a demand for it, is not wrong.

This is to stop schools from taking the easy way out by just organising classes in one language.

I also agree that mastering three languages can be a struggle for some students. In Malaysia, whether you like it or not, BM is more useful and important than English.

A rational parent will make the right decision to sacrifice English for BM even when they prefer English if it is to the benefit of the child.

We all expect that having Science and Maths taught in BM will improve their command of the language. That’s a reasonable assumption.

However, you are a minister. You don’t work on hunches and expectations. You need to prove it.

There should be sufficient data for a statistical study. Do that. Study what type of students benefit most from it.

Show us the proof. That’s how you convince people.

Isn’t the main goal of teaching Science and Maths to understand the subjects, not the language they’re taught in?

Forcing students to take classes in BM and using the justification that they will improve their command of BM will only be met with resentment. Let parents decide what is good for their children.

There is no question about the importance of BM. Failing BM in SPM is a serious block to a lot of routes of advancement in this country.

Let the parents choose what is best for the child. Just demand that the kid can communicate and read basic Malay.

Man on the Silver Mountain: Generally, anything that imparts knowledge is always good. In this case, knowledge of two languages, BM and English.

As Fadhlina (above) admitted that English needed strengthening, it is perhaps an admission that our education policy was wrong after all.

After 50 years of fixation with nationalistic calls for the usage of the national language, we now find our children and grandchildren being unable to speak English.

We find that we no longer have the likes of former minister Rafidah Aziz or former prime minister Najib Razak who speak fluent English.

Where are the language champions who advocated the suppression of English?

Our short-sightedness due to being blinded by nationalistic fervour has made us foolish, unable to design a balanced policy that is both pragmatic and nationalistic in the long run which could benefit the people and the country.

By quoting the 2.5 percent failure rate in BM, Fadhlina was being fallacious.

What did the education minister expect here? 2.5 percent failure means 97.5 passes. That is a pretty good achievement. Ask any educator, they will tell you that.

We expect students to fail sometimes. Not everyone will pass. But that is not the end of the world. It only means the subject curriculum is tough enough that students need to study hard to pass.

Even English speakers do not necessarily have to pass the English subject. Educational language is not the same as spoken language.

What’s important is that there should be a safety net, an option for students to pass the subject if they want to continue studying.

Another fallacy by Fadhlina was to equate raising English language proficiency at the expense of BM.

Why should it be one or the other? Use your brain! To ensure that students can be proficient in both languages, set the mechanism accordingly. Engage experts to do it.

MarioT: Bear in mind Fadhlina, you don’t have the sole authority to decide what is good for our children.

Parents who are concerned about their children’s good education must also be consulted on any amendments to the national education policy.

Our education system is being treated as a game of chance to gamble away. There has never been a consistent and long-term education policy for the good future of our children.

The Dual Language Programme (DLP) is a half-hearted effort to improve the English language which has seen more controversy than its implementation.

Even now, it is still under a lot of controversy of what and how it should be implemented and, while doing so, our children are left in a lurch.

I see our education system as an experimental laboratory with each change of leadership bringing new and ridiculous changes.

Nationalism is used to gain votes while depriving our children of a wholesome education for a bright future in line with global developments and technological advances.

Excuses after excuses are given to fine-tune policies which end up as failures. We do not have many expectations of the DLP, with the current nationalistic policy and teaching staff primarily made up of those who are BM-educated.

I know of parents, though not earning much, still sending their children for tuition to brush up on their reading, writing, and arithmetic as current teaching in national-type schools leaves much to be desired.

Negative as it may seem, it is the reality of a national policy that keeps shifting the goalpost according to the whims and fancies of its policymakers.

Bullcrap Intolerant: If you take a step back to revisit the primary objective of the DLP, it is to increase access to knowledge and promote science, technology, engineering, and maths (Stem) subjects.

You have to acknowledge the references for Stem subjects are mostly in English. The world is conversing in English. Tertiary education also mostly uses English as the medium.

Fadhlina’s directive is indeed a step backwards for the nation when we are already falling behind our regional peers.

Please set your nationalist agenda aside and stop pandering to the right wing. Do what is right for the future of our kids and nation.

PMB: If you want students to improve their command of a language, you don’t ask them to learn a subject in that language.

Low proficiency in that language will hamper their understanding of the subject. Neither their language proficiency nor knowledge of the subject improves.

To improve their proficiency in a language, you give them a well-designed results-oriented curriculum and good teachers to deliver it. The results will show if the ministry is doing its job.

If the students are not improving, the ministry is to be blamed.

Fair Play: The more she tries to explain herself, the more she trips up.

BM is already the national language, in accordance with the Federal Constitution.

English, on the other hand, is the leading international language for cross-border written and verbal communication and the acquisition of technical knowledge especially for Stem subjects.

If future generations of Malaysians are not proficient in English, what future will they have internationally?

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