Best if Mahathir stays out of school children's English learning

MM Online - After PM’s push for English in Maths and Science, Chinese education groups say no (extracts)

KUALA LUMPUR, July 18 — The government should not revive the scrapped policy of teaching of science and mathematics in English (PPSMI), two Chinese-language education groups under the collective name of Dong Jiao Zong said.

In a statement, Dong Jiao Zong expressed its dissatisfaction over Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s remarks in Parliament that the government is studying the reintroduction of the PPSMI policy.

has never like Chinese since way before 1969, where some said t'was during his university days in Singapore

in the 1969 general elections they voted him out by supporting instead PMIP (today's PAS) Yusof Rawa in Kota Selatan in Kedah

t'was the 1st time the Chinese voted massively for an Islamic Party PMIP (PAS) - it took the insult of Mahathir to prompt them to switch from their erstwhile allegiance for Tunku Abdul Rahman's Perikatan Party to PMIP

Dong Jiao Zong argued that teaching students in their mother tongue should instead be continued, citing examples of developed nations such as South Korea, Japan and Finland as examples of countries that had staunchly maintained education in their mother tongue without hampering their progress.

Referring to the 2018 results of primary six students who achieved 80.15 per cent and 96.12 per cent of the minimum level in UPSR examinations for maths and science, Dong Jiao Zong claimed this showed the effectiveness of teaching the subjects using students’ native languages.

The group insisted that the government focus on strengthening the teaching of these two subjects in students’ mother tongues in all school streams for better results, instead of “forcing” primary school students to learn these in a second language.

“Because students are unable to master a language that is not their mother tongue, this will weaken students’ academic performance in mathematics and science, and seriously affect the quality of the nation’s education,” the group asserted in a statement yesterday that was written in Mandarin.

Dong Jiao Zong is composed of the United Chinese School Teachers’ Association of Malaysia (UCSTAM) otherwise known as Jiao Zong and United Chinese School Committees’ Association of Malaysia (UCSCAM) better known as Dong Zong.

In the same statement, Dong Jiao Zong also cited the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025’s quoting of a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation. (Unecso) report that teaching students using their mother tongue initially would better equip them for bilingual or multilingual studies, noting that a return of the PPSMI policy would contradict the education ministry’s recognition of the importance of education using students’ mother tongue.

The group called on the government to recognise vernacular education as the most effective learning method for students, asserting that this has nothing to do with the “pride” of ethnic groups but was instead linked to the right to learn of students.

Dong Jiao Zong insisted the use of the PPSMI policy during the 2003-2009 period had affected the quality of education in Malaysia and should not be repeated. [...]

“Finally, Dong Jiao Zong calls on the government to let go of meaningless personal sentiments and follow research reports and data analysis to advance education reform,” it said.

On Tuesday, Dr Mahathir in replying a question in Parliament had said the National Education Advisory Council is still studying the matter of PPSMI, but noted that the council was split between those that wanted PPSMI and those insistent on continuing with Bahasa Melayu.

Today, without any doubt, the Chinese vernacular schools (SJK-C) are the top educators in Maths and Science in Malaysia, a credit to the school teachers and a boon to their students of all races in SJK-C - indeed they have been for aeons.

I have always suspected, wakakaka, Mahathir has been jealous of that. Yes, he has a perpetual grudge against Chinese Malaysian for just doing/performing better than Malays.

If it had been any other PM, I would have appreciated the cabinet promotion of PPSMI, but knowing Mahathir, I questioned (still do) his push for the teaching of English in Maths and Science - I even used the word 'sinister' in his persistent push for implementation of the program.

As PM in 2002 he made PPSMI as a Malaysian Government policy after a cabinet meeting on 19 July of that year.

It would have eff-ed up the vernacular schools' prowess in the teaching of Maths and Science. But what saved the fortunate Chinese education group from the complete implementation of PPSMI was the then opposition of Malay teachers to the program. Like the Chinese teachers they were not ready nor equipped to teach in English, and wisely they objected to PPSMI.

Anyway, apart from Dong Jiao Zong's quotation of UNESCO's recommendation for primary school children to best learn in their mother tongue (vernacular language), and mind, English is NOT an easy subject to learn as a foreign language, learning a new language is best done with a subject that requires decent verbal interactions and considerable use of vocabulary on a regular basis, like reading, history, civics, moral studies, geography, literature etc but hardly maths and science.

How to learn and command a new language when you just learn limited use of its vocabulary like, add/minus this from/to that, resolve equations 1 and 2, what is value of 'x', prove that 'y' is 2, etc? On top of that, all such instructions will be uttered by the respective teachers instead of the students participating interactively.

Thus, if our young students can learn English through those subjects which I've proposed above, then they will have commanded enough good English to also assist them in their learning of Maths and Science.

Don't let Mahathir destroy our children's educational standards again as he and many UMNO Education Ministers did in the past.

To quote blogger JUST READ's answer to Daim Zainuddin who asked: "Where will Malaysia go if our grads have poor English?", the blogger wrote:

Good question, but I guess he needs to direct it to Dr Mahathir who was the Education Minister in 1974-78. He observed how English medium schools were abolished throughout the 70s and completed in 1982 when he became the fourth prime minister.

What a hypocrite. 

Besides, Mahathir has been particularly unsuccessful with most of his grandiose schemes so I believe with his notorious 'MINUS TOUCH', most Malaysians would want him to stay out and let someone who is more learned on education deal with our children's precious studies.