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Sakmongkol ak 47

ariff.sabri@gmail.com

Thursday 9 July 2009

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.

23 comments:

de minimis 9 July 2009 at 21:01  

Great post. There's certainly a disturbing case of myopia on the part of the government. Giving in to language chauvinists and the lackadaisical attitude of the Maths and Science teachers towards mastering the English language is the wrong thing to do. That is pandering to th grownups. What about "masa depan anak-anak kita"? Shouldn't that be the priority?

Ryzal72,  9 July 2009 at 23:29  

Assalamualaikum,
Bro this policy decided purely because of the PRU 13. Do u realise it?. Thats why the goverment very happy to allow teachers in SJKC/T to teach science and in their mothertounge.Govmnt calculation very simple....u vote us and we give u this previlege. Easy right, no need to pening2 kepala.Is it wrong?. Of course not because we are in the era of one Malaysia- be liberal bro. So No Big Deal. Bravo UMNO.

hoqni 9 July 2009 at 23:33  

Excuse me fellas,

http://anwaribrahimblog.com/2009/03/05/hadi-ppsmi-menipu-bangsa-sendiri/

PAS and PKR were the ones who were being populist, 1st and 2nd. BN had to follow.

Anonymous,  10 July 2009 at 00:58  

Sak, every word you say rings true to me, but will they listen?

This is a true story. My niece came back from school about 2 months ago with this sad sad sad anecdote. What is five push (tolak) one?

Fi-sha 10 July 2009 at 01:32  

Good morning Datuk Sak

Tash Aw's books are great - they are must-read. Another local author is Encik Wan Hulaimi. His "Growing Up in Terengganu" is a must-have treasure.

With or without PPSMI: -

1. We are sorely lacking in curiosity and interest in reading

2. We are in dire needs of responsible and eternally optimistic teachers - if they are resistant to new changes that would equip them for the world, lets just make it to power of 2 for their students' unwillingness to learn anything new and useful

“Paralyze resistance with persistence” - Woody Hayes

PPSMISupporter 10 July 2009 at 02:10  

Well..since the Indonesian Govt cut off their workers supply, there is a demand for labor workers right ? So wat the Govt do right now is exercising their "cleverness" by preparing stock for "future laborer". Jadi labor tak yah cakap English la bang :D. Weird thing is, within 6-years period of "kajian", nobody bothers to ask our "murid-murid sekolah" on wat they think bout PPSMI. Err..Education Minister sir, how many schools you sudah pergi while conducting "kajian PPSMI" till you can made this kind of decision ? Hehehe..

Mat Cendana 10 July 2009 at 08:05  

Been quite some time since I came here. If it's of any comfort Dato', I didn't go to other blogs either - too much to do over the past month or so.

As de minimis had noted, this is a great post. There are two other very good ones that I had read:
Wei Liang Goh's Disappointed over PPSMI scrapping and Scrapping of the PPSMI by Michelle Yoon. There are more I'm sure.

With this decision, there goes whatever slim hopes there might have been of "Malaysia competing with other nations at the international level."

Nothing more for me to add except to leave a message here for those who were against the use of English, like Gapena and other "katak and munkee" who might chance by: Awak-awak yang mendabik dada mengaku dan perasan pembela bahasa dan bangsa ni... mahir betul dalam penggunaan kepala lutut ye."

As a sign of protest, I'm changing my profile pix to the Union Jack.

Anonymous,  10 July 2009 at 08:25  

This debate will probably be never ending. While both camps may have a valid argument, they seem to forget that its about economics and not culture. Whether you like it or not this country needs a pool of competent English speakers.

The solution is fairly simple. Bring back English medium school. Since we have Chinese medium, Tamil medium, Malay medium why not English medium? For example start with 30% of government school in English medium. Obvious choice is will be to start in the urban areas. Reduce the number or increase it according to the demand.This will satisfy all parties

Democracy is about having a choice.Let the parents decide what language medium to educate their children. No need to ram down our throat a 'solution' because one party demands it.One size does not fit all.

Anonymous,  10 July 2009 at 08:27  

Spot on! It is not the language that counts, but the mind set and quality of the people. Countries like Korea, Japan where these subjects are taught in their mother tongues are technologically superior. The reasoning that Malaysia can be like them is deeply flawed because our people do not think like the Koreans and Japanese! Look at the quality of our educators and I believe that whatever language Science and Math be taught, the outcome will be the same.

Nordin 10 July 2009 at 08:59  

Saya sangat dukacita dengan keputusan kerajaan untuk menukar balik pengajaran sains dan matematik dalam bahasa inggeris kepada bahasa melayu. dua orang anak saya memberitahu saya hampir semua kawan mereka ingin sains dan metematik diajar dalam bahasa inggeris. adakah terdapat kajian-kajian yang dibuat untuk kami mendengar "suara" anak-anak kita tentang isu PPSMI ini? kajian-kajian yang dilaporkan semua adalah berat sebelah. kajian-kajian ini hanya dapat dilaporkan dalam laporan-laporan yang dijilid sendiri! Berapakah laporan yang sebenarnya telah disiarkan dalam jurnal-jurnal antarabangsa? Persoalan ini timbul kerana, jikalau sesuatu kajian apat disiarkan dalam jurnal antarabangsa, ini bermaksud reka bentuk kajian tersebut adalah mantap. Masalah sekarang, ramai pensyarah yang membuat soal selidik dan kajian mereka penuh dengan kepincangan dari segi kemantapan metodologi. kajian-kajian ini, walaupun dibentangkan dalam seminar-seminar, sebenarnya bermutu rendah dan tidak seharusnya boleh mempengaruhi polisi kerajaan.

Saya pernah membaca satu laporan kajian oleh sekumpulan pensyarah dari universiti pendidikan yang melaporkan bahawa "sebahagian besar (purata lebih 70%) pelajar Melayu 5 mendapati kurang senang mempelajari Matematik dan Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris" (ms. 22). Apabila saya cuba meneliti angka tersebut, sebenarnya, terdapat lebih kurang 25% yang mengatakan bahawa sains dan matematik SENANG DIPELAJARI dalam bahasa Inggeris, manakala lebih kurang 33% yang mengatakan sains dan matematik SUSAH DIPELAJARI dalam bahasa Inggeris. Sementara itu, terdapat lebih kurang 42% yang mengatakan sains dan matematik AGAK SENANG DIPELAJARI dalam bahasa Inggeris. Tetapi, dalam kajian ini (m.s. 22 tadi), pensyarah-pensyarah tersebut telah menggabungkan peratusan yang mengatakan "susah dipelajari" ( lebih kurang 33%) dan "agak senang dipelajari" (lebih kurang 42%) sambil merumuskan bahawa lebih 70% pelajar Melayu 5 yang mendapati KURANG SENANG mempelajari sains dan matematik dalam bahasa Inggeris [berbanding dengan lebih kurang 25% pelajar yang mengatakan SENANG DIPELAJARI]. Kumpulan pensyarah ini kerap kali membentangkan "kajian" mereka yang pada pandangan saya, merupakan satu penipuan dan pemutarbelitan angka-angka statistik demi memenuhi agenda mereka yang kini dah tercapai dengan pegumuman kerajaan pada 8/7/09.

Oh, banyak lagi kepincangan dalam kajian-kajian yang disembahkan kepda kerajaan. Misalnya, tentang pelajar bandar dan luar bandar, kumpulan pensyarah tersebut mendapati bahawa "di kalangan murid Melayu min skor Matematik murid di sekolah 'luar bandar' (8.34) lebih tinggi sedikit daripada min murid di 'bandar' (6.57) dan 'pekan besar' (8.34). ... [tetapi] ini adalah sesuatu yang di luar jangkaan" (ms.52). Hello, kenapa tidak mengupas perbezaan ini????? Pencapaian pelajar luar bandar adalah 20% lebih tinggi dari pelajar bandar!!!!!!!! Angka ini sebenarnya adalah juga “siknifikan” (ms.52). Kenapa tidak HIGHLIGHT dapatan kajian ini???????? LUAR JANGKAAN????

Rujukan: Kesan Dasar Pengajaran Matematik dan sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris di Sekolah Rendah (Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris)
Sekiranya kerajaan telah mengambil kira dapatan kajian ini untuk membuat keputusan baru-baru ini, saya cadangkan supaya keputusan itu dikaji semula kerana ianya telah dibuat berlandaskan kajian-kajian yang tidak mantap dan rendah mutu kesahan dan kebolehpercayaannya. Kan ramai pegawai bergelar doktor di kementerian yang boleh membezakan yang mana satu kajian adalah hampas dan yang mana satu adalah beras. Jangan-jangan pegawai sendiri adalah doktor hampas yang berkecenderungan memilih hampas!

Anonymous,  10 July 2009 at 09:14  

weird.. When malaysians take them to the street to resolve their issues, our government(they) abides.
When they lead the biggest malay party, they listen to non-malays.
When they try to be popular, they put forth the opposition issues and not fixing their own issues.
When they propose liberalization and wanted the majority to transform and respond globally, they stomped and cut of maths and science in english and put forth Bahasa Malaysia for foreigners to adhere.
Sweet irony some might say. Stupid and blatant ignorance to the needs of many is what i would say.
Failure to understand maths in english might have cause it.
When they ask 'please post your comment in our blog', they actually wait at post office waiting for mr postman to come and deliver the comments.
Such is the idiocy of them trying not to work hard but smart.

Ahli UMNO temerloh

Anonymous,  10 July 2009 at 10:03  

In the first place, trying to teach Maths and Science in English without ensuring the teachers' and students' proficiency in English is a mistake. Trying to teach Maths and Science in English as a means to improve the students' proficiency in English is down right stupid. Bringing standards down so that more can qualify as with everything else in this country will make this a country of retards and backward looking people. Frogs happy living underneath a coconut shell.
In terms of being a written and communicated language, Malay is not an efficient language compared to English. We cannot depend on this regime. It is up to us as parents to ensure how our children will be educated. No wonder private schools and the tuition business thrive. I am making sure my children learns all the subjects in English as well.

Anonymous,  10 July 2009 at 10:34  

I am sadden by the decisions that been made by the Govt.

Yesterday, as I was driving to pick my daughter from nursery, I pass through 3 private school. The students just finished the morning sessions. 99% of the student that came out from the school was not Malay.

Later I was discussing this matter to my husband. Wealthy Malay family will send their children to private school so that they could get better education and better environment. The subjects and language that they teach and speak is in English.

The average and poor Malays are in SMK. Most Students and Teachers in these schools (from my own experience) they will speak Malay language. English will only be heard during the English subject. Even then, you will hear them explaining it in Malay.

Then as all of them grew up, you and I know who will get most advantages. Of course most of the jobs opening will go to the private school students. This itself does not include parents sending their children overseas Universities. Not only they could speak fluent English, they get better tutoring (since the Teachers never gave excuses as in “it is hard to teach in English as we were also taught in Malay”). I pity the average/poor because not only they were rank by wealth, but also the education that they receive when young.

If they do not change the system, our poor SMJK students have the same opportunity with the wealthy private students on language in future. Higher work chances for them. We will hardly hear employers complaining on most Malay/non-Malay graduates from Malaysian University or SMJK cannot speak proper English or English at all.

Please Govt, at least give a little bit of hope to the poorer students/families for their future.

Distractor

Anonymous,  10 July 2009 at 11:10  

anaon 10.03,

increasing the proficiency of english among students is not the objectives of ppsmi.

please ensure you get your facts right. even najib got this wrong.

hence, when you get the objectives wrong, your approach is also wrong.. in the end, the solution will also be wrong.

Anonymous,  10 July 2009 at 11:22  

I've been supporting the teaching of science/maths in mother tongue since the very beginning.

But I put a caveat to my support - my support is limited to primary level when the foundations of science/maths r been built.

Perhaps like Dato has mentioned that I'm just been realistic & practical, looking at the big picture for the future of my children - language chauvinistic or not! I'm sure I'm not alone among my peers.

The surprise of enforcing the teaching of science/math in BM in secondary schools is - ouch - a BIG no no!

What will they been thinking???

Another batch of guinea-pigs to be tried & tested?

Can these policy schemers really suitable to make such policies? Or they r just as blur as the prophetic blur sotongs, swimming within their imagined enclosure in the 'globalised' ocean?

I wont take IT! Is time we take back the future of our children in our own hand. I'll home-tutor my children myself.

Remember our forefathers using their hard-earned money to establish make-shift shelters for the education of their children?

Remember those dedicated teachers, earning peanut, just to distribute their knowledge to those who care to learn?

The governing authority, then, didnt care because these were not the product of the main stream policy. Yet how many achievers had these 'schools' produced?

Take a leave - going the way of independent schools with English as a main medium of instruction. With enough support, both people & money, this English school will flourish & become a educational force to be recognised.

Some one ask why not SRJK(I) & SMJK(I)? I say why wait & ask for government help? Where's the never-die initiative? Or r u just waiting to jump in when the train starts moving? Otherwise u r just a bystander, forever waiting for other's to start something First!

U might say that u paid tax & its govt's job to provide education. Then I say why u elected the current govt? Waiting for GE13? I said u r just forever given excuses!

Others might said that there r already international schools that cater to this need. But how many can afford the fees? R we dividing the quality education of our children base on the incomes of their parents? As if the current divide is not the undoing of the current govt - both policy & educational trend!

Band together to get a quality education for our children - prove to those hp6 politicians that education should be in the hands of true professionals. It's not a political football to gain popularity & votes!

kuldeep 10 July 2009 at 11:36  

is ppsmi about english prificiency?
Or is it more about getting our students to absorb the right english terminologies when studying maths/science?
our mathematicians will not be popular globally if they insist on "pushing" instead of "subtracting".
and woe if they do a google for subtraction by keywording pushing >>that 18SX territory>>are we pushing our kids to that?

So..i reckon its not English proficiency thats at stake but more Applied English.

walla 10 July 2009 at 18:15  

The cabinet might have made a grave semantic mistake. Thinking that the PPSMI issue is 'national', it sought a uniform solution. But that might well be betting on the slower horse to help the underdog but ending up losing the whole race, as so quaintly put by one maximus in: http://is.gd/1tiG0

Rural/urban divides exist in all countries. Take the digital divide. That's internet access. Telcos can't be expected to draw more cables and build more substations in rural areas than what the country can afford because the per capita returns just aren't there to justify the business case.

That's why it is also easy to understand why only 10 percent of the 'english teachers' in rural schools are trained to teach english. Which means the other ninety percent are mostly malay-stream teachers of other subjects coaxed to teach communication english. Couple that anomaly with the fact that english will not be expected to be much used in rural places, it is little wonder then that the impetus to perform in subjects taught in english will not be strong.

Now with the reversal, not only the rural students will not be able to get the key to more knowledge of the world, the urban students will also have to do double work if at all possible later in order to catch up with other more far-sighted education ministries.

But what will be most galling is that the reversal will also discourage teachers from improving themselves in english in order to gain more knowledge to impart to their students.

For what we have at the moment is thinking about the starting point and forgetting the reason for education. If education is not to improve understanding and acquire knowledge, what is it?

Proponents of the reversal will ask if the student is hampered from understanding in the first place, how can he acquire knowledge? The answer to that will have to conclude on how much knowledge is out there which is in bahasa. If the answer is a lot, then one can be sufficiently assuaged. But we all know this isn't so. Knowledge as envisaged by the proponents seems to be what you can get from the local textbooks. Those books that fit the exam syllabus. But what happens after that? You will meet a vast ocean of knowledge that is locked away just because of one factor - the access language. Translation from english to bahasa is impossible for the quantity and rate of growth of present knowledge in english. And that's for all subjects, not just science and maths.

.

walla 10 July 2009 at 18:15  

How are the children going to read even simple stuff like:

http://is.gd/1tofe

when their minds are all conditioned to think of knowledge only as what they can read in books designed to help them pass exams of declining standards?

Admittedly, the discussions have everywhere on their own volition expanded beyond the PPSMI issue. It has become the issue of which languages are appropriate to acquire and keep up with knowledge so as to be relevant in order to build new economies where know-how will be the premium calling card. And it's easy to see why. The subterranean tremor has surfaced. We are really grappling with the situation where our country is going to face tremendous challenges in years ahead. If anything, the market liberalisation and equity relaxation are telling of a new reality which must now be met headlong because the old political spins have spun themselves out of orbit and cannot be depended upon to pull wool anymore over the rakyat.

And that's why it is also naive to say that we have UKM doctors doing well and professionals groomed from the malay-stream. Well and good, but what's after for them? Can they expand their knowledge and skills on their own? Can they do well in postgraduate exams conducted in other languages, and if they can, how much additional energy need they expend just to overcome the hurdle of understanding material deeply and confidently enough to command the skills building process?

Knowledge is built stack on stack. If one cannot decipher even the lowest stack, one may reach the top but it will be achieved without knowing what one really knows.

A good education system avoids that.

Lastly, i recommend maximus' post and congratulate the blogger for another scintillating piece of deep import

ajoyly 12 July 2009 at 18:24  

Dato', thank you for a very thorough analysis of this controversy.

I support, Anonymous' (10 July 2009 08.25) suggestion that we should have a third alternative, that is, the government should also establish English medium schools.

I believe this is the best way to satisfy the varying demands of Malaysians. Those who wanted their children to have mastery of the English language can send their children to these schools.

GAPENA and related organisations including NGOs should accept the reality as Tun Mahathir rightly said that English is the language of knowledge. Putting it simply, it means, without knowledge, Malaysia cannot progress - thus placing her survival at stake.

If this scenario happened, will GAPENA and similar bodies have the know-how (the magic lamp) to save the country from such a tragedy.

GAPENA and others should consider withdrawing their opposition to the teaching of mathematics and science in English because the future of 30 million Malaysians will be affected.

Therefore GAPENA and allies should thoroughly search themselves whether their objections are made for the ultimate good of the country or otherwise !

Y1 14 July 2009 at 15:21  

Given the mess of the education in Malaysia we should support this initiative by parents action group:

Dear Parents,

PAGE Response to Minister's decision on PPSMI

GIVE PPSMI OPTION TO SELECTED SCHOOLS

Since the decision to switch to the mother tongue is to accommodate the rural students who have been made to appear to have ‘lost’ from the policy, the Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE) wishes to request to the Minister of Education to consider the PPSMI option be made to schools that desire to retain the existing policy in the form of SK(PPSMI) and SMK(PPSMI). This fourth option has been glaringly ignored.

If the Minister is willing to accommodate vernacular schools, he should rightly do the same with schools that wish to maintain status quo who have benefited from the policy and are confident of the ‘intended objective’ being met.

PAGE will be formulating a plan of action for parents that desire their schools to have the PPSMI option. In the meantime, we request that parents nationwide including Sarawak and Sabah:

1 Indicate to us the name/s of your school/s that may want to maintain PPSMI; or

2 Ask their PIBGs to liaise with us through pagemalaysia@gmail.com .

Please help by forwarding this message to as many parents as possible. We have 9,000 schools to reach!

Thank you.

For Our Children

Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim
Chair
PAGE

Anonymous,  17 July 2009 at 11:57  

dear all,

before we can even start thinking about this whole issue we should tackle the underlying problems within our entire education system.

to me it's not a big question of english or no english. it's simply a question of quality and it has nothing to do with the language medium. most of the time we are producing sub standard educators who remains substandard with or without english.

revamp the education system, put politics aside, apply meritocracy to it's fullest at every level, put honest people in the right position, get rid of cronyism. do this and we will have a kick ass education system. if u think teaching in vernacular languages is a hinder to good science and maths, take a look at the japs, the koreans, russians, french, the list goes on.. they did not do it by having english as a medium in science and maths. they did it through pure performance and hardwork...it's a simple as that.

of course u can disagree coz they are many other countries which excelled through english. im fine with that. i simply don't care which language science and maths is taught with. im just saying some of us might be barking at tree to hard without addressing the real issues here.

let's not forget when tdm first introduced this he was addressing the fact that our student's grasp of english language is low and this will help it. back then i thought the only way to address this problem is to improve the quality and quantity of our english subject and classes. he barked at the wrong tree and now we moved that tree to bark at another wrong one. so let's face it, we are mostly product of a failing education system.

peace

OB,  17 July 2009 at 12:05  

Dato'

saya tidak membenci PPSMI tetapi saya menyokong pemansuhan nya.

antara duanya ada pro dan cons, tapi bila ditimbang2 semula saya memilih utk dimansuhkan.


cuma fikiran saya memikirkan apakah rasionalnya seorang melayu ingin menafikan bahasa nya utk bersaing sebagai medium ilmu, sedangkan di masa yg sama, kita sentiasa memaparkan "perkataan Malaysia boleh" yakni apa2 pun kita buat, kita boleh berdaya saing dengan bangsa lain.


Tetapi mengapa bila pasal Bahasa, bukan saja Melayu, tetapi Cina dan India pun kata TAK BOLEH.

Pada pendapat saya, dan betulkan saya jika saya salah, dimana2 negara pun, semua memakai bahasa rasmi masing2, iaitu bahasa ibunda atau bahasa asal milik negara itu.

Ini satu reason kenapa saya sokong.
Keduanya, sains dan matematik juga menceduk bahasa asing, latin arab dll, jadi mengapa melayu tidak boleh memgambil daftar kata asal huruf tersebut utk dipakai sebagai bahasa ilmu.

Dan utk bahasa melayu persuratan adalah di dalam bahasa kita sendiri.

Sy berpendapat semua ini boleh dibuat. Sedangkan perkataan "amuk" lagi boleh diguna pakai dalam bahasa inggeris, sebab perkataan tu tiada dalam daftar kata mereka.

Sy rasa ini semua bisa di atur.
Sy mmg menghormati pendirian Dr M, tetapi perkara bahasa ini, sy sama sekali tidak bersetuju dengan beliau.

Noni,  17 July 2009 at 12:09  

I dont believe Malaysia cant progress just because of Bahasa.

I would like to know how Japan acquire skills and technology, while at the same time, they're still using their own language.


I think we Malaysian especially Malays lack analytical mind. Be it CEO or layman.

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