The PPSMI Issue

The market will punish us. Accordingly I find it difficult to support the government's decision to revert teaching science and maths in Bahasa Melayu.

I was talking to two serving ADUNs from Pahang. They are from MCA. Both are university graduates. One of the issues we talked about is the teaching and learning of science and maths in English. In Malay it is called PPSMI. I told them, the subjects will be taught in Malay again. Mana boleh they said. It must be retained as of now. As of now, means, they are taught in English.

These are Malaysian Chinese speaking on the subject. I know both went through primary Chinese schools. I don't think their loyalty to whatever Chinese cultural cause is lesser than those who espoused the same vehemently. Yet, they regard a reversal to the teaching of the two subjects in Malay disturbing and ominous.

I do not think it is the teaching in Malay per se that bothers them. The Chinese seem to have been very adaptive to their social environment. Even when the medium of instruction has become almost entirely in Bahasa Melayu, it has not stopped the Chinese students from doing very well. Some even scored better in Bahasa Melayu than Malay students.

What borders them is the economics of mastering a language that allows the Chinese boys to compete will be taken away. Mastery over the universal language of commerce opens more doors for students. They understood the economics of learning English. The Chinese have benefited from learning English. Multinationals prefer domiciling in countries where the standard of English is high. It follows therefore that, a country with a workforce with a high standard of English language is preferred. The Chinese don't want to lose out economically. Mastering the English language places the students on a higher premium.

What is the significance of the success in making the government switch to Malay? The medium of instruction in all national schools is in Bahasa Melayu. Except of course you can't teach English in Bahasa Melayu. Even here, I hear there are demands that the English novels and reading material that are used to teach should be ones written by local authors. Would Tash Aw's Map of the Invisible World qualify?

I find the rationale that the teaching of these two subjects finally establishes the sovereignty of the Malay Language suspect and must never be allowed to pass un-debated. If that is the rationale then why do you allow the teaching of these two subjects in vernacular schools be carried out in the respective mother tongues? Di mana then is the martabat bahasa Melayu? You still have a situation, that Bahasa Melayu is not universally applied in Malaysia. That means, you still have not achieved full majesty stature of the language. You are still burdened with the accusation, that martabat bahasa Melayu masih di pertikai. Samad Said should be jumping here.

Suppose down the road, in 5 years time, when everyone who are made to go though the language regime have completed their lessons, we find those who have studied the subjects in the Chinese and Tamil Language doing better that those who studied them in the Malay Language. What then? What happens if in the national schools, non Malay students having been forced to study the subjects in Malay, do better than Malay students?

Would we then admit, that insisting Malay language be placed on its sovereignty pedestal has been accomplished on the blood and tears of Malay parents.

We are also offered as a reason, that this current policy will be a step to correct the imbalance between rural and urban school children. Rural children are said to perform badly in maths and science when they are taught in English. Urban school children do better. The urban children do better because they have better facilities, better teachers, and tuition opportunities. These should be made more readily available to rural children. Post better teachers there if the deficiency in English language is the main cause for their poorer performance.

The logical inference then is if these subjects are taught in the common Malay language, the performance of the rural children will be better? We seem to accept the achievement of rural children as the gold standard by which all children must converge upon. I find this reasoning faulty. If anything, we should be taking steps to elevate the standards of rural children to the higher standard of urban children. The higher standard of urban children is the standard that we must work to arrive at. Tuan tuan dan saudara saudara- we want to share in higher standards not share lower standards. We are thinking like socialists- sharing misery is better than sharing prosperity.

We are not told of the rural students' achievements in other subjects which are taught in Malay. If rural performance (Pr) is <Pu, where Pr is rural performance and Pu is urban performance, what are we to make of that? If Pr is indeed inferior to Pu in subjects other than maths and science, then it strengthens our argument that the poor performance is caused not by poor mastery in English but inferior quality of facilities. Perhaps it is also accounted for by poor parental support, low value attached to education and so forth. The physical and psychological support system in rural areas are inferior to that in urban areas. It is to these things that we should direct our efforts at and not look for English language as scapegoat.

We have the curious and debilitating consequence of having won the language battles; our own students lost the war. You hear people like Firdaus Abdullah( the UM Lecturer) extolling the virtue of the Malay language- I don't understand what he is talking about in the Malay Language. He goes to international symposiums, I doubt he converses or interact in the Malay language except when going to Indonesia.

Hence we come to the real rationale of the language nationalist. The motive is to ensure Bahasa Melayu is ennobled. Kita mesti memartabatkan bahasa Melayu. Of course we must tuan tuan dan saudara saudara. By making bahasa Melayu the medium of instruction-mandatory in government aided schools, we have finally succeeded in absolutely owning something. Malay language is owned by the Malay and it is in this, that Malay ownership is absolute. In all other areas, Malay hegemony is a myth.

Jadi the rationale is nothing more than to superimpose the last remaining pure Malay thing onto all of us.

How will the market react?

In the longer run, this policy will guarantee Malay students remain in a limited market. Those who overcome this limitation by somehow mastering the English language will operate in a wider market. The difference between the Malay and Chinese boils down to this. The Chinese sees the world as their oyster while the Malay sees only Malaysia as their oyster.

One of the strong supporters of this reversion is the distinguished professor Ungku Aziz. Now, Ungku Aziz is a heavyweight intellectual who often laments about thinking deficiency among Malays. One of the incapacitating quality of the Malay, according to Ungku Aziz, is they don't know how to think. Perhaps we can use his observation to elaborate on the differences in thinking between Malay and Chinese.

The Malay appears lost when it comes to thinking dynamically. This involves thinking ahead, thinking again and thinking across to make one's particular group relevant to the modern world. Thinking ahead involves envisioning future requirements and positioning oneself to stay relevant. In a world where globalisation flattens the world, boundaries are mentally and physically erased; making oneself relevant necessarily involves mastering language and technical skills. The less adaptive becomes less relevant and remain behind because of failure to acknowledge emerging realities. Thinking again involves re-examining current policies and refining them to adapt to changing environments. Thinking across means learning from the example of others on why they have become better performers.

At a very basic operating level, the thinking mode sets the Malay and Chinese apart. The Chinese know how to think dynamically while the Malay does not. The Chinese will work to position himself to be relevant; they will sharpen existing skills and knowledge, sharpen their experience and are open to learning from others.

Was this revisionist policy apolitical?

Whatever TS Muhyidin says- all decisions are political. No decisions which are taken qualify as being politically free. It is political in the sense of any decision taken is a translation of the powers behind. Hence the decision to teach the 2 subjects in Malay, is political in the sense it translates into practice, the possession of governmental powers.

In this case, it translates the power of partisan demand from the language supremacists. This will lead people to the conclusion that the government capitulates to the demands by these groups. It will also be seen as a calculated move to rally votes for the coming Manek Urai by- election. It is also another distancing step from the legacy of Tun Mahathir. It is another step in de-Mahathirisation. That's how political it is.