Math and Science Reverted Back To Bahasa
July 9th, 2009 by James | This article was viewed 2,667 times.
A lot of Malaysian government actions(bribery) can be ignored by closing an eye pretending that they never happened before. However, on the 8th of July, the Malaysian Government announced that Mathematics and Science subjects will be revert back to Bahasa Malaysia, the national language starting 2012.
This in fact is an extremely serious matter that cannot be overlooked because it concerns the future of the present youth!
I had been there (I studied math and science in Bahasa) and I had done that, I must say that I do not agree with the Government’s decision for the revert. This has been the third change since independence! Subjects are mostly taught in English when British left our country, it was changed to Bahasa before, then during 2003 it reverted to English and now, shit happened again. I mean, how ridiculous the government can be?
Reason of this Yet-Another-Political-Farce
“Only 19.2% of secondary teachers and 9.96% of primary teachers were sufficiently proficient in English,” he said, explaining the Government’s decision to revert to the old system.
These absurdly low percentages are the result of emphasis on Bahasa on Math and Science before 2003. I am extremely sure that these results have been constantly improving until yesterday when the Government decided to revert back to Bahasa again.
It’s an English Speaking World Out There
Look, the economy leader(the USA) educates their young in English. Educating our future leaders in Bahasa for Math and Science is suicidal. All of their secondary Math and Science educations are down the drain as they reach to tertiary level of education. I know this from personal experience, many Math and Science terms do not make sense in Bahasa Malaysia.
And more importantly Bahasa Melayu, unlike German, Japanese or Chinese, does not have enough vocabulary keep it updated with the technological terms introduced in Math and Science.
Malaysia is different! Even though Bahasa is the national language, most private corporate companies operate in English language. How do you (the Government) suppose not enhancing the English language education in our youth would do any good to the country’s economy in the future?
Of course, here is a quote from The Star that answers my question above
He (the Deputy Prime Minister) however added that there will be greater emphasis on learning the English language.
This is a joke I can expect from the Malaysian Government. Here’s how,
On efforts to emphasize the learning of English, the number of English teachers would be increased by 13,933 — retirees would be hired, as well as foreigners if need be.
Let’s assume 2 thousand salary per month for English teachers. That is about 28 million per month of tax payers’ money spent unnecessarily on teachers! We are better off without the revert and spending that 28 million properly.
What is worse is they now even started to spend on the foreigners! What happened to the Buy Malaysian Products Campaign?
and …
Primary schools will also increase English classes by 90 minutes a week.
That is 18 hours of English studies everyday! Give the children back their childhood days! The children need more childhood experiences, not some badly designed education system!
The bags are literally bigger than the size of their body. Picture From The Star.
On top of that, more tax money have to be spent on English illiterate teachers. We all know what happens when there are not enough “sufficiently proficient in English” teachers to be hired.
Discussion: What do you think about the Government’s decision? How will this reflect the future of our children and the future of Malaysia?
My Point Of View
I think the reason our teachers are so English illiterate (proved by the percentages) is because of these ever changing education system decided only by a handful of clowns. Answer me this question, 3 times since 1957, how do you expect the citizens to keep up?
This announcement also depicts the incompetence of the Malaysian Government that is unable to analyze Malaysia as a whole and make sustainable decisions. I completely understand that mistakes can be made even by the Prime Minister of Malaysia. What I do not understand is why is the government not improving from the mistakes they had made?
Perhaps there is a conspiracy behind these decisions considering the 28 million per month. Maybe it is another act of corruption that has been ongoing for ages in Malaysia. Or is there an invincible being that is more powerful and currently influencing the Malaysian Government? All we know is, this is another farce from our Malaysian Government … again.
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July 9th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I guess the new moto for the government adopt is ” When the going gets tough, we gave up!”
July 9th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I’m not happy about this.. I don’t want my little cousins n siblings study maths n sciences in bm T_T not that i dislike the language, it’s simply because we need English to survive out there! I don’t think lots of student have problem in English lor, cause most of them know how to play ps games, nintendo, arcades, dota and varieties of online game; which are in English! x.x sigh~
I thought our SPM results improved every year? ..
July 10th, 2009 at 1:53 am
@Kirara1987,
That sums up our Malaysian Government.
@babysiiaozz
Well only a portion of uneducated people are happy about this announcement.
Our SPM result, I personally see the population always improves as a whole. But by such a big margin shown in our Malaysian Newspaper is definitely made up by scaling the results.
July 11th, 2009 at 1:04 am
My daughter is less than 2 years old and she can understand both English and Japanese, and later will introduce Malay, Mandarin and Cantonese.
http://daddyparentingtips.blogspot.com/2009/07/tip-161-reading-in-both-languages.html
I can’t see why we cannot take 1 step forward to integrate the BM textbooks few years back with the current English science and maths text books. Its a lot of effort, but why move backward instead of forward. We can allow students to use either English or BM to answer in the exams as long as the maths and science principles are correct.
Some good will surely come out of the dialectics at work between both languages instead of choosing either one. We need new advancements. We need Malaysia Boleh. Not some power struggle between languages.
When will Malaysia advance and not hold on to race and language as stumbling blocks but embrace our differences as advantages?
July 11th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
We have a hopeless Malaysia education system. The system implementers send their own children to international school to study all subjects in English, yet they revert all our subjects to Bahasa just to win the votes of those uneducated Malays. Whatever can we do? Earn more $ and search for alternative.
July 13th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Hello James,
I’m pretty sure you’re not the only one who feels so strongly regarding this issue. Being someone who was educated via the same system that you were; that is, Maths and Science in BM, I do admit that I was slightly compromised compared to my college friends who learned their terms in English. I used to be one of the few toppers in school in English, but to my chagrin, my main problem in college was my inability to understand the question!
For my 2 cents worth; I believe that the government should stick to the former system of M&S in English. Like what you said, even though it got off with a rough start, it’s been getting better, albeit slowly but surely. Being in a foreign country, you see lesser-educated people everywhere as well; they may not have finished tertiary education, but the difference is that they can speak english. It gives them an upper hand and I think Malaysia will need that in the future.
I’m not rejecting the idea of BM being important and all that, but I believe having 8 out 11 subjects in Bahasa is poignant enough. What’s the harm in keeping 2 more subjects which were orignally in english, in english? :D
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:52 pm
stupid bm lar D:
during trials i had to highlight all the ENGLISH questions before answering because bahasa is SO DISTRACTING. grr