A sad day for Malaysians

[Note: Kids, this article may not be of interest to you]

It’s happening again…they have once again reversed their previous decision. The “lalang” government at its best. I have written a few articles about politics before and a particular article has caught the attention of some hardcore opposition members. I would like to make it clear again, I am neither pro government nor the opposition. I don’t like both sides. But I may be seen as pro government because I am NOT pro opposition (do you see the irony?). How could I support either side when all of them only have one thing in common – the interest of 1 thing at ANY cause (sometimes without making any sense); 1 individual, 1 group or 1 religion. Corruptions? I don’t even want to talk about it.

Anyway, so much has been said in the cyber space about the decision to revert the teaching of Math and English back to Bahasa Malaysia. I for one, don’t want to be left out *grin*. So, even though I promised not to write about politics again, I would like to have a say in this. I want to stand out and be counted too...I say yeehaaa to that!

Frankly, I have mix feeling about this. I have actually written briefly about this in an article entitled “To my friend, please don’t call me a terrorist” in March. I laud the previous Minister of Education for trying to elevate the standard of English at school by introducing English in Math and Science subjects. However, I don’t agree with their kelam kabut implementation when the teachers were not ready to teach in English at the beginning of the implementation a few years ago.

With the new ruling, I actually have two concerns:
1) The future of our children
2) The state of our current government

I’d like to talk about issue no. 1 first. I ask myself, will our children be less fluent in English when they learn Math and Science in BM? Will their standard of English decline over time? My answers is both YES and NO.

YES, if we rely totally on schools to cultivate the English speaking culture. So for those who live in kampong like where I come from, I feel sad for the children. They had the opportunity to learn at their tender age (unlike me who only had my chance after my SPM) but was taken away. It is a known fact that children who are exposed to certain learning at their early age tend to excel better. In this essence, they will feel more comfortable speaking in English as they grow older. So if you take that away from them, they’d need to get use to it again like what I had to go through almost 20 years ago. Thus, I say we are taking one step backward by reverting to teaching Math and Science in Bahasa.

NO, if we the parents take the extra mile to help the kids at home. But then again, taking that extra mile is very difficult for us parents, isn’t it? It’s easy said than done particularly for working parents. Even a full time mom like me doesn’t have enough time (nor the patient) to teach my kids at home.

We could only hope with the promise of more English teachers (and hopefully QUALITY English teachers) we could maintain or improve the standard. Hopefully no more of teaching English in Bahasa like my English teacher, Cikgu Salleh did. I remember he used to teach us: “I” tunang dia “am”, “she” tunang dia “is”, bla bla bla…. Come to think of it, I guess I have come a long loooong way.

Nonetheless, I strongly feel that ALL English teachers should have TESL qualification and perhaps we could even have two English classes instead of one. But learning without practising could be futile. That's why we need to teach some other subjects in English too, perhaps less important subjects like arts and PE (for crying out loud!)?

On to my second concern, the state of our government. I’ve also written an article about this in my other article entitled “My take on the toll hike U turn decision” also in March. Did you notice that our government often succumbs to pressure? This is so obvious after Tun M stepped down. When certain quarters demand something they’d easily reverse their previous decision. We’ve seen this in the toll hike U turn, petrol price hike and now the English issue. All for the sake of winning the next general election, sad but true. They are more like “lalang” - could never stand firm on its own principle in the presence of pressure. Now we know why Hishammuddin was re-designated as the Minister of Defense. Perhaps because he would never agree to reverse the decision should the status quo remains.

Enough said, I wonder what will they do next to win the heart of those perceived as the majority. I say the majority is always silence. It’s the minority that always makes plenty of noises… A sad day for Malaysians indeed.