English Proficiency and Ever Changing Policy

I received a sms from a friend FT Fun asking me to log on Tun Mahathir’s blog and vote for the teaching of science and mathematics in English. It seems Chedet is compiling the feedback from the public so that he can convey the message to the government. Tun Mahathir apparently disappointed with the cabinet’s decision to reverse to using Bahasa Malaysia and other mother tongues in teaching science and mathematics in primary school which will take effect on 2012.

Tun Mahathir, as one of the smartest person in this country has his points, English proficiency among the younger generation is rotting. Some graduates can’t even speak proper English rendering them difficult in getting employment in multinational company. But how representative is the poll put up by Tun in his blog is a question mark. Who do you think will vote in his blog? Highly educated people of course and are they representing the whole population?

Speaking from my own experience, I’m against teaching of science and mathematics in English right from the very beginning. When I was in primary school, it was a well known fact that the Chinese vernacular school put a lot of emphasis on mathematics teaching. Simple reason, how to do business if you don’t know how to count? My classmates and I were so interested in this subject as it is practical, applicable and also mind cranking. But when come to secondary school, mathematics was not that enjoyable to learn anymore. Not because that it is tougher but because of language barrier as you first have to master Bahasa Malaysia before you can learn mathematics. The terms and so on were entirely different from the primary school when mathematics was taught in Mandarin.

It seems to me that everyone is blaming the school or in this case, the government for the deteriorating proficiency in English. I don’t blame the school because education is not the sole responsibility of the school. It is also the responsibility of the parents, the family. Some of us grown up in a family where our parents speak only their mother tongues, no English. The only place we learn the language is the school. The school should in fact put in more emphasis in encouraging pupils to speak the language and not by drastic move to teach science and mathematics in English as that would probably complicate the learning process. At the end, neither here nor there, English don’t seem to improve and worst still pupils lost their interests in learning science and mathematics.

All this hiccups we see on TV and newspapers pertaining to the issues of teaching science and mathematics are mainly spurred up by highly educated groups of people, somehow their views are only confined to their own experience but not taking into the account of larger masses where students are from family that do not speak English at all. The dropout rates will become higher if the student lost interest in study and would do nothing good to the future generation, proficient in English or not.