Anti PPSMI – A cover up for ineptitude?

1) The Gerakan Mansuhkan PPSMI (GMP) is truly a one of a kind group of people.

2) These opponents of PPSMI are mostly those who were educated in the english medium i.e. in senior cambridge, MCE etc.

3) Despite their educational background (they spend their school life in the English medium) they remain passionate about Bahasa Melayu and this proves that regardless what language one chooses to adopt as his medium, he can remain patriotic to his national language.

4) Gapena and former DBP stalwarts who are leading the GMP should accept much blame for the need to resort to study the two subjects in English as there are insufficient translated works. If they had not been busy playing politics and instead focus on translating those Maths and Science books into Malay, the necessity to revert to English for the two subjects would have been diluted. These people need to answer about this ineptitude first and foremost before launching themselves into this lose-lose situation.

5) In my observation, ever since national schools were fully converted into Malay medium, Malay students sent abroad to study Maths and Science related disciplines failed to be outstanding at least in their first year which was spent to understand the terms and jargons in English.

6) If Malays are to progress in a global environment, they have to master Maths and Science-related disciplines and not Arts and Social Sciences, which incidentally the disciplines of most of those in the GMP. Hence, I am sceptical whether these people would be empathetic with the situation faced by the Science students.

7) The question is, how long are the Malays going to try to make everything easy for their children? Surely a bit of a struggle makes them tough by introducing PPSMI. 

8 ) Why are we pampering our children so much? Or are we actually trying to pamper the teachers and the people in DBP? Are they burdened with too much work? Is teaching Maths and Science that difficult for the teachers? Is translating English books to Malay an extremely arduous task? The reason why not many scientific books were translated from English into Malay was precisely because there is lack of people in DBP that could understand the scientific terms in English.   

9) Furthermore, when PPSMI was introduced, the national schools were at its lowest ebb with non-Malays prefering vernacular schools. By introducing PPSMI back in 2002, the national schools were selling a new packaging which was supposed to be more appealing to the less chauvinist non-Malays.  

10) Did we not hear all the calls by parents that the level of education in Malaysia is deteriorating? Are the people in GMP have the same aspirations with the parents?

11) Arguments that countries like Japan and Korea had done well in fields of Maths and Scence is not a comparison as their nations which included their advanced status in the two fields had allowed them to progress while sticking to their national language.

12) They achieved what they had become today because many many decades ago, they had studied English in order to gain knowledge in the fields of Maths and Science. Eventually, they had become a strong nation which could glorify and protect their own language! Hence, my contention in paragraph (3) above applies.

13) Lately, even this seems to have saturated as these nations are scrambling to push their people to adopt English once again especially in the two fields. In a matter of years time, China for instance, will become the biggest country in the world which have English as a speaking language.

14) Comparatively, Malaysians are more in demand than Indonesians or Thais in the international market merely because they speak English. But that had only confined them in the service industry and menial tasks. With their command of the language in the Science and Maths, they will be highly in demand for the more advanced technological field.

15) It has only been 6 years since the policy was introduced. Give it a chance to flourish. As it is, it had not caused any damage to the students. It is more ethical for the people in DBP to support PPSMI than to be against it. For the pride of the national language, they should work hand in hand with the government on how to improve the PPSMI approach. Not to be against it totally. They need to push the teachers to be more dedicated and hardworking so that they will become proficient enough to teach in English.

16) To protect a national language, one has to be strong enough to do that.

17) In the time of the Melaka Sultanate, Malay was the lingua franca of the region because they were a successful race, capable of standing on their own. How did they become successful so that Malay became the lingua franca? By being leaders in the economy. By being able to gain knowledge by studying books from other civilisations. They learned other languages to gain the upperhand in commerce at that time. Malay language did not become lingua franca overnight. It became the lingua franca just because the people who spoke the language became great.

18) What good is the national language if the knowledge pool of the people is diminishing? What good is the national language if the DBP could not even perform their task to quickly translate English books into Malay? In my opinion, GMP is just trying to cover up their own weaknesses. Stop playing politics and concentrate on your work please.

19) The government on the other hand should remain steadfast in the decision made because to back down now would be a sign of weakness. I am sure the government do not want to be flip flopping all over again. That is the trademark of a weak administration. Weak governments will be neutered by the opposition all the time. In the end, nothing will progress.

For further thoughts, please read here, here, here and here. 

Update : Blogger A Voice had written a good article regarding this issue albeit in a different angle. Click here and voice up your opinion there.