Poor English – it’s garbage in, garbage out
Something isn’t right about English, rues DPM
After the hundreds of millions spent on ‘lawatan sambil belajar’ to every nook and corner of the civilised world and workshops in fancy resorts and hotels. After the hundreds of thousands on special tan sri-led committees which wrote many volumes of unread reports.
After hundreds of millions spent through Telekom Malaysia on not very Smart Schools and after the criminal amounts paid to McKinsey & Co for ‘studies’ leading to a National Education Blueprint, our most brilliant minister of education says:
“I am puzzled why our children after completing pre-school, primary school, secondary school and all the way to tertiary education, still cannot converse in English.”
2020, here we come.
Pahatian: It’s all about the education policy, Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. It’s also about ‘ketuanan Melayu’ and the recruitment of teachers, especially English teachers.
The teaching of English was never meant to be important all this while. Who abolished English schools in the country? Who abolished the teaching of science and mathematics in English?
Add this all up and you have the answers. No need to form a high level, action packed committee and wasting time and money to find the reasons.
I know of a person who was the next to be selected for an English course. He was teaching English then, but a Malay language teacher was selected instead. Halfway through the course, she left for the university.
Another case was a principal, who was a Bahasa Malaysia major. He was selected to attend a diploma course in English in Australia although he never or ever taught English in school. The irony is that when he returned, he didn’t even teach a single period of English.
So now you should know there is something not quite right about the above examples, which is something you need to address and not just talk about.
Fair Play: Dear DPM, have you heard of these axioms – ‘bad workmen blame their tools’ and ‘garbage in, garbage out’?
I am a product of an educational system when English was the primary language of instruction. All of us (Malays, Indians and Chinese Malaysians) had no problem mastering the language.
You are the education minister. I am sure you understand my message very well.
Anonymous_3e86: Firstly, our DPM’s English isn’t much to shout about either. The fact is that a pass in English is not mandatory in our SRP and SPM. So who cares?
Kyrie Eleison: When international ranking organisations rank our universities low, we say we don’t need to be ranked by them. When our education standards are falling like ten pins, you say our education standards are world class.
When weak students and teachers complain that it is difficult to study or teach science and maths in English, you make a U-turn and go back to Bahasa.
Do you see the answer to your question? No?
Progressive: Simple. Two reasons:
1) English teachers, who cannot converse in English, are selected to teach because of…
2) Language has to be practised. You cannot learn it in the classroom just to pass an exam. Usage is key.
Pakatan-Ku: English language has been the sacrificial lamb on the altar of Umno’s ‘ketuanan Melayu’ policy.
China, which has a 5,000 year history of Mandarin, encourages learning of English and today China has 100 million English-speaking young adults and children.
We need to set aside our own ‘ketuanan’ thinking and move forward with the world in which English is the lingua franca on the Internet. Do we want to become just ‘Jaguh Kampong’ (local champions) in the 21st century?
Anonymous #70881335: Sometimes speaking English may need a bit more self-confidence than writing English. But that goes for all languages.
Mr DPM, your job is to find out why and work on it, rather than don’t know why and ‘sit on it’.
Jaded: The difficulty of the English language test at SRP and SPM days are laughable to begin with. I remember students completing the English test within half the time allotted, which goes to show how easy it was.
Candidates would also sit for the 1119, which is the Cambridge English test, and that would be the ones students would sweat over. A distinction there meant something.
Given that it has been more than 20 years ago and levels have deteriorated even further, is it really puzzling why the current batch cannot speak English? Fix the standards if you want them to speak English.
Gen2indian: It’s not rocket science. There’s no need to form any more “high level” committees, spend billions of taxpayers’ money on “lawatan sambil belajar” trips overseas to find out why.
I grew up in the 70s simply reading the (borrowed) English dailyThe Straits Times every day and conversing with my friends in English.
Simple, it costs nothing but a proven success as I never scored less than an ‘A’ in my English tests without any tuition. Get the simple things right.
By the way, I also scored an ‘A2’ for my MCE Bahasa Malaysia. So fluency in any language is achievable if you have a strong desire to excel.
Meow: Dear Muhyiddin, everyone knows why, including you. No need to pretend.
Well Thats Fantastic: I see the opposite actually, I know many Malay families whose children can’t pass BM at school. Their English is outstanding though.
Not every brain can cope well with more than one language, why try to fit all children into your mould?
James_3392: Umno has designed English education so that majority of students, graduates or otherwise, cannot have a good command of English.
They can only read Utusan Malaysia, watch RTM and TV3. The foreign media is all in English, so better keep it from them.
This is how Umno controls the mind of Malays. This is evident by the total lack of support to BN by the urban populace, where the command of English is significantly higher than rural areas, and choice of news includes in English.
In fact, it’s an established fact that those with a better command of English tend not to support Umno-BN.
Commentable: It’s because something isn’t right about our national education system and that problem has been getting consistently from bad to worse for decades.
Our students from the national schools end up being neither here nor there, and when they look for jobs after graduation, they are not too good in any of the languages.
It is not the number of hours that one has to go through to master the English language; it is about the medium of instruction in school.
You want to make things right? Bring back English medium schools.
Unmasked: Indeed, our standard of English is going to get worse before it begins to get better. The turnaround, even if you start the process now, will take at least a decade.
The majority of our current generation of school-going youths faces a bleak future.
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After leading the Ministry for many years, he is puzzled as to why the command of English is still in sub-standard among our students. I am puzzled as to why he is still holding the post of Education Minister if he doesn’t know the answer!.