English policy reversal in primary schools on the cards

By Leslie Lau
Consultant Editor
The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, March 15 – The government is likely to scrap the policy of using English to teach science and mathematics in primary schools while maintaining it for secondary schools.

Education Ministry sources told The Malaysian Insider today that the compromise in policy will be recommended to the Cabinet for a final decision soon in an effort to resolve a controversy which has been brewing for months.

But the compromise could ignite further controversy.

The decision is not likely to sit well with the significant number of Malaysians who want the policy to continue.

Those who want the policy scrapped completely will also not be fully appeased.
Under the compromise, all national primary schools will revert to teaching science and mathematics in Bahasa Melayu.

For vernacular schools, the instruction of science and mathematics will be either in Mandarin or Tamil.

However, it is unclear how the ministry plans to help pupils adapt to the change in the medium of instruction in secondary schools.

So far, ministry statistics suggest a majority of pupils are choosing to use English to answer examination questions for the two subjects.

There have also been little discernible differences in the results of students which could be attributed to the use of English.

The teaching of science and mathematics in English was introduced in 2003 by the Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad administration.

It was introduced in stages, starting with Year One, Form One and Lower Six that year.
The first cohort to complete six years of primary schooling using English for the two subjects received their UPSR results last year.

This month, the SPM results also showed that instructing in English had also not affected the achievement of students.

Education ministry figures show 89.1% of 178,751 candidates opted to answer the Additional Mathematics Paper 1 fully in English.

For the Chemistry Papers 2 and 3, 71.3% and 76.8% of students respectively sat for their examinations in English.

For the Additional Mathematics Paper 2, the figure was 86.2%, while for Biology Paper 3 it was 81.5% and for Chemistry Paper 3 it stood at 76.8%.

Students can opt to answer Science and Mathematics papers in English or Bahasa Melayu, or in both languages.

Last week, thousands of protesters took to the streets here to protest the policy in a demonstration that turned violent.

Since then government leaders have come out strongly in defence of the policy, with a number of concerned parents also taking up the cause.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the man who pushed to teach students mathematics and science in English, also defended the decision, saying education was not about popularising a language but to acquire knowledge in various fields.

He also reserved his bitter criticism against those protesting the use of English, saying national policies should not be dictated by protesters as that would be detrimental to race and nation.
"It will get worse if those who demonstrated are orchestrated by opposition politics," Dr Mahathir wrote, using Bahasa Melayu, in his popular www.chedet.cc weblog.

He pointed out that acquiring knowledge was important for everyone's future no matter the language used.

"Let's not gamble their future because we are nationalists who love our mother tongue. Loving the mother tongue cannot exceed loving one's race. Those who love their race would like it to progress, have knowledge and be respected by the world.

"Only speaking in our own mother tongue won't make us a race that is respected and admired by people," said Dr Mahathir.