Teaching In English Minus The Hypocrisy

Malaysia ever since independence in 1957 has found itself in convulsions mainly due to doubts about its own viability to survive as a nation, and also because the country was continually trying to determine what really was its true identity. The mainstream political party was commanded by the Muslim Malays who took in tow the MCA and the MIC. However, due to the existence of a sizeable non-Muslim and non-Malay minority, the mainstream politicians were very much fearful of their future status in the newborn nation. The situation of that time was not unlike the present situation in Fiji today. However, the minority in this country was much less infatuated with the trappings of political power, rather, they were much more concerned with economic progress, especially after the trauma of the Japanese occupation. This did not prevent the government of Malaysia, headed by the mainstream UMNO, progressively taking steps to impose its vision of what the country should look like after independence. Many steps were taken to ensure that the people were always aware that this country belonged to the Malays, never mind if others were also born here, or if others were here in this land long before the arrival of the first Malays. One step taken was the imposition of the Malay language as the official medium of instruction in government schools. English was to be considered as a leftover from the colonial era and not suitable to be taught widely to the young in the country. That of course reflects the myiopic vision of the country at that time, but at least one could say that the Internet and personal computers had not yet come into existence then. The losers of such a situation were the school pupils who grew up in the sixties and seventies. Fast forward to the last years of Mahathir's dictatorial rule. The man then was trying to force his mad idea of grouping three schools in one location, with the idea that they could share a common school field and canteen, on the people of Malaysia. The people were thoroughly not keen at all on this crazy proposal, and in the Lunas by-election, the voters kicked out the candidate representing the mainstream politicians. It was a very clear signal from the people to Dr Mahathir that they were determined to reject his half-baked vision and that upset the near-senile leader to no end. He, instead of backing down or showing that he was correctly chastised, hit back by throwing a spanner in the educational works by declaring that from now on, as a result of the rejection of the proposed 3-in-1 combo, all the schools in the country were to accept English as the medium of instruction for the two subjects of Mathematics and Science. Mahathir could not care less for all the pupils who were already struggling with the 2 most formidable subjects in the school curriculum. He could not care less if they, already struggling with their lessons taught in their mother tongue, were now going to drown in the process when the schools switched over to the new language of instruction. English, by the way, is a very difficult language to master as it is a very highly evolved language. Since Mahathir left the scene, many voices speaking out against the usage of English in the teaching of Mathematics and Science have been heard and

even some mainstream politicians are against it. They are fully aware of the damage done to those pupils who could not make head or tail of the English language, never mind the mindboggling formulas and terms found in Math and Science. This is more than ample proof that the idea of teaching Math and Science in English so that Malaysian school pupils would become latter-day William Shakespeares was just nothing more than dirty hogwash. If the Malaysian government truly wants school pupils to master English, it should allow primary schoolchildren to learn and enjoy poems, stories and shows (not convoluted mathematical formulas and theorems) in simple straightforward English. The teaching in English minus the hypocrisy ( which Malaysia is famous for) should be instituted in Malaysian schools. The pupils in the classrooms must never be allowed to become victims of political mismanagement. Bad evil politics have long sickened the education process in Malaysia and it is time to implement change. Change is what we need.