Science & Maths in BM Again II

Some on this blog has called for my comments on this issue. Some have even emailed me privately to "declare my stand". Well, I wrote on my Facebook early today a short note on my position, which I copy below. I've also taken the liberty to also include some of the 40+ comments on this issue so far in this post.

"Tony Pua hopes that schools in urban areas where the students, teachers and parents are keen to retain English as the medium for Maths and Science will be given a choice to opt out of the switch back to BM/BC, especially in secondary schools."

I've also made the following short comment to another Facebook friend who had asked the same:

"My stand is that PIBG should have a say/choice in the language use, particularly in urban areas where competency in English is already fairly high and in demand. You/we should push for this.

Rural areas can't help it, especially with teachers who can't even string a sentence together in English."

The above is my personal and public position which I will highlight in parliament. I've also written on the same in my Chinese column in Oriental Daily a few months back.

DAP's position, for those who are interested, is that urban national primary and secondary schools should be given a choice by the parents on the language to be used. Some have accused the party of staying silent on the issue. I beg to differ. Both Chong Eng, MP for Bukit Mertajam as well as the party Secretary-General, Lim Guan Eng has made the party's stand known for a while now. But if the press doesn't print (or print it often enough), there's little we can do.

Selected comments from my Facebook update:

• Vivian Chiang at 10:13 on 09 July
  i totally agreed that ..hopefully
  
  
• Bee Hui Chuah at 10:21 on 09 July
  yes... agree!!! especially secondary school!!! Education, is not Experiment!!!
  
  
• Justin Wee at 10:22 on 09 July
  It's a silly thing to scrap of, the malay lingu 'experiment' was conducted ever since the early 70's, & it's almost 30 years project. For a mere less than 10 years project on english medium being scrap of, it's not a pronounced fair campaign
  
  We cant compare our so called 'looking at other nation', whereby the japanese still maintains their language, and the french themselves. but bare in mind that these nations have 'comparative advantage'.
  
  Japan has their advantages on technology, and the nation is a pioneer export to America, so they eventually 'do not have to worry on language', but anyways, they do learn english, but i bet their learning is WAY better then here itself... Read more
  
  
• Kong Chia Yew at 10:25 on 09 July
  You should put this suggestion up to Parliament if you get a chance. Will be a pain in the ass for administrators of the policy but then the old maxim takes over "it'sfor the best of us"
  
  
• Steven Fung at 10:29 on 09 July
  can they do that?
  
  
• Lim Yong Keat at 10:31 on 09 July
  what is the ministry doing? we are not like Japan or US or Germany.
  
  
• KhengTeong Goh at 10:32 on 09 July
  In a LOCAL university. Some of the lecturers allow us to answer in English although the questions were in BM. In final year, we are strongly encouraged to write our thesis in English. And our exam papers were in 2 languages, English and BM....
  
  
• Eoh Teng Kor at 10:32 on 09 July
  why not creating english medium school for the option no 4. since we can allow "international school" , i dont see why we cannot have one more option.
  
  
• Terrassie Lau at 10:40 on 09 July
  At the end of the day, for the younger generations, it is again ' head you win, tail I lose" We may soon ended up without english lessons too if the money spent do not generate good english teachers, in accordance to the DPM's silly statement. Just scrap english la.
  
  
• See Hong at 10:48 on 09 July
  Actually good result not related wt language. Japanese, Germany, Italian, France ppl also not study in English, but today they still advanced country. It is the matter of education system. Correct way is study in mother language in Primary, English in Secondary. Since so good why need to wait another 3 yrs ? To prepare for the changes & objection of TDM ~ the idiot who initiate this plan few yrs ago ?
  
  
• Felix Leong at 10:59 on 09 July
  Japan, Germany, Italy and France ARE PART OF G-7! They are the world's economic power house and their domestic markets are huge! What are we ???
  
  
• Albert Tan at 11:00 on 09 July
  For those in Form 1 now should be allowed to use English in Form 4 and Form 5 in 2012 and 2014 so that continuity is maintained.
  
  
• Claire Khoo at 11:05 on 09 July
  eh hello ... to implement immediately, where to find books? Excuse me, you wanna scold the gohmen also think before you scold can? its like the Dong Zong head who said we should implement this immediately. Buku mana nak cari? Guru mana nak cari? (I think our education system really failed, that's why obviously malaysians don't think before they comment.)
  
  
• Leroy Ng at 11:13 on 09 July
  The decision is political and politically backward mindedness. Unfortunately PKR's Anwar Ibrahim and PAS support this decision. Why DAP kept silence b4 decision made?
  
  
• Chin-Huat Wong at 11:21 on 09 July
  revive English schools as a form of mother tongue education!!!
  
  
• JooLee Tan at 11:27 on 09 July
• I believe that DAP is also in favour of this reversal. Tony, I think it's futile to even suggest an option that hasn't been discussed. Frankly, the whole exercise has been futile and our children and grandchildren will be paying the price for generations to come.
  
  
• Eoh Teng Kor at 11:31 on 09 July
  Agreed with See Hong, it is about system. We just allow BM/BC/BT/English medium in Science and Math. Let parents have a choice/option. Let parents decide which is suitable for their kids...
  
  
• Lillian Danielle Khoo at 11:36 on 09 July
  I am surprised the DAP was in favour of the reversal. Meanwhile UAE has just announced that they plan to teach Math & Science in English. http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090702/NATIONAL/707019852/1019
  
  It just seems like Malaysia is taking 1 step forward and 3 steps back in our education system. They made a good decision to make it compulsory in passing English - I couldn't believe that it was optional to pass in the first place. Then they decide to revert Math & Science back to BM. During my studies, I had the opportunity to share classes with ...
  
  
• Cheryl Witha at 11:52 on 09 July
  what's new with the education system? Student have always been lab rats, they constantly change the system to suit whoever is currently in tht position(at their whim and fancy). It has always been absurd and still is. They never think things through, ever. What is to happen to our education system, I feel very sad as an educator..
  
  
• Fok Kuk Fai at 12:00 on 09 July
  I agree with using mother tongue as teaching medium at the primary school level. But I strongly advocate to shift it to English medium in secondary school level and above. This is not only for enhancing English proficiency, but also for the future generations to easily access to the science and technology as well as social science knowledge pool ...
  
  
• Juliana Yoong at 12:00 on 09 July
  What a shame! I totally agreed...
  
  
• Cheryl Witha at 12:07 on 09 July
  I teach at college level and every batch that comes in..well most of them can't even speak English let alone write a simple application letter. What is to become of them in the future?
  
  
• Chong Hou Yin at 12:22 on 09 July
  learn from singapore please, stupid najib
  
  
• Joseph Ng Swee Wan at 12:28 on 09 July
  malaysia will be back to those 1970's day ...... we are going backward and not forward. let's see in the next 6 years, where are we heading? oh, maybe by then DPM wil be out of job and poor PR has to take over this baby and to answer to everyone for such absurd policy.
  
  
• Ho Kok Kuan at 12:28 on 09 July
  All for PPSMI to be retained. Dual languge in primary, follow by full English in secondary school. Person will be fully equipped when leaving for uni/college.
  
  
• Marsha Maung at 13:21 on 09 July
  YES PLEASE!! I am so sad with the switch to BM/Chinese!
  
  
• Walinong Sari at 13:28 on 09 July
  No. Follow the MOE directive.
  
  
• Alwin Lim at 13:38 on 09 July
  Havent we done enough damage to our brilliant childrens ?
  
  
• Steven K C Poh at 13:58 on 09 July
  I'm bewildered by this news. We have a flip-flopping government that's playing Russian roulette with our children's future. What now? How can we stop this madness?
  
  
• Lee Wei Jie at 14:02 on 09 July
  secondary schools should retain English as medium for Maths and Science so that pupils can have a bright future to study overseas and be linked to the world trend...it is good to switch back mother tongue for primary school level as it is a good way to build up the basis of children, let them hv a effective learning process and happy childhood...
  
  
• Ooi Beng Sun at 14:21 on 09 July
  agreed with Lee Wei Jie. secondary students should be given the choice to choose the medium of instructions. we should not deprive our gifted students who are proficient in English acquire more knowledge to pursue their career. reverting to malay is like chaining our children with big stone, stop their progress, making them going backwards to the dinosaur age!!!
  
  
• Daniel Hong Aan Lee at 14:22 on 09 July
  YB, I believe that Science&Maths for primary education should be taught in mother tongue (esp for SJK(C)/SJK(T)), however secondary schools should teach their science&maths in english, so that the Malaysian english teaching system will not deteriorate.

Science and Maths to be taught in BM again

Thank you to the anonymous commenter who brought this to our attention; I am sure Tony and Kian Ming will have a lot to say about this. Here is the story from The Malaysian Insider, and here are some graphs from The Star. My take is as follows:

This is horrible. But anything which had a realistic chance of happening would be almost as bad.

In a perfect world, students would be learning all subjects in the best language for them individually, and also learning Malay and English perfectly fine regardless. But we do not live in that perfect world. In the next best world, we would have a consistent policy (sticking to either English or Malay for Science and Maths, if not all subjects) and competent teachers able to implement this policy.

This being Malaysia, and our politics being our politics, what we got was a silly compromise that made nobody very happy, and a paralysed bureaucracy uninterested in making this policy work. One of the most telling graphs in the link to The Star above is the last one, which shows only 20% and 10% of secondary and primary school science and maths teachers respectively scored 67 or higher on an evaluation of their English proficiency.

The fact is, this policy failed. But was the old policy working? As far as I can tell, no. That's why we tried this policy in the first place. Our students were not doing as well as they could in science and maths, and their English was atrocious. So our politicians got this bright idea to try teaching them science and maths in English.

But the execution was fatally cocked up. The Education Minister says that now they will try a different approach to enhance English learning: English literature will be reintroduced as a subject, along with grammar and composition. (I wonder if that is a misquote by The Star, because that would make a total of four subjects for the English language alone.) The Minister also said that they would rehire retirees and foreigners if necessary to supply more English teachers.

All these are things which should have been done before! In particular, it's not like the government had no idea our science and maths teachers were so fatally flawed in the English department. Rather, they completely ignored this, and rammed through this ill-thought-out policy anyway.

Maybe teaching science and maths in English is a fatally flawed idea, but we have no way of telling that from this six-year experiment, because the government so thoroughly messed up its implementation! (There is also the counter-argument that teaching these subjects in English worked perfectly fine for thousands of schoolkids before we switched to Malay as the national medium of instruction in the 1970s.)

What really angers me about this decision is that the government virtually knowingly had this cock-up of a policy going for six years, when they should have bloody well known their science and maths teachers could not teach in English. So we had a whole generation of students undergoing this massive change, all for naught. And now we will have another generation of pain as thousands of kids get stuck in educational limbo while the government phases out this failure of a policy.

All this was completely unnecessary. The government could have at least tried to make PPSMI (Pelajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Math dalam Bahasa Inggeris) a success by not virtually sabotaging it, but they did not. They could have increased the allocation of time to English, refocused the curriculum, and hired professional English teachers six years ago, but they did not.

More importantly, the government could have avoided all this and successfully transitioned to teaching science and maths in English if only it had been patient and first prepared the teachers to use English in the classroom. But they did not. They pushed through the policy when it was plainly not ready.

In short, we spent six years spinning our wheels doing absolutely balls, and we have nothing to show for it. It is infuriating, but I don't blame the government for ending this now. I do blame the government for keeping up this ridiculous charade for six years, when it was obvious to almost everyone -- even people who might have otherwise favoured this policy -- that this could never have worked with the way they rammed it through.

Richard Feynman on Learning

Richard Feynman was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics. He was an eccentric figure, and quite a few books have been written by him and or about him on the subject of his life. One of the most famous, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! is now available for reading online, absolutely free. (If reading online gives you eyestrain, there's always Amazon.)

The book deals with a wide range of fascinating topics, from sex to business to art, but because Feynman spent most of his life in academia, it focuses on education. The book is primarily a collection of loosely-related essays, so you can skip the irrelevant parts if you don't find them interesting, but I recommend you read the whole book anyway. The following essays are especially relevant to education:

• Lucky Numbers
• O Americana, Outra Vez!
• Judging Books by Their Covers

Lucky Numbers has a very interesting twist on the standard litany about the evils of rote memorisation. Feynman describes how he was able to best a Japanese man armed with an abacus because he had memorised more combinations of numbers and operations:

I realized something: he doesn't know numbers. With the abacus, you don't have to memorize a lot of arithmetic combinations; all you have to do is learn how to push the little beads up and down. You don't have to memorize 9 + 7 = 16; you just know that when you add 9 you push a ten's bead up and pull a one's bead down. So we're slower at basic arithmetic, but we know numbers.

Feynman's point is that it's understanding which matters the most, and that there is not always a conflict between understanding and memorisation. Sometimes, you need to memorise something to understand it. The abacus salesman had merely memorised how to work an abacus, without internalising any understanding of numbers and how they relate to one another. Because he worked with numbers, day in and day out, Feynman knew them like the back of his hand.

O Americana, Outra Vez! is a meandering essay on the time Feynman spent lecturing in Brazil, but it is absolutely worth reading because of its emphasis on the need for the right philosophy of learning. Much of it is still very applicable to the Malaysian education system:

After a lot of investigation, I finally figured out that the students had memorized everything, but they didn't know what anything meant. When they heard "light that is reflected from a medium with an index," they didn't know that it meant a material such as water. They didn't know that the "direction of the light" is the direction in which you see something when you're looking at it, and so on. Everything was entirely memorized, yet nothing had been translated into meaningful words.

This particular discussion caught my eye because it reminded me instantly of all the revision books students buy to supplement their textbooks and lectures:

So I came in, carrying the elementary physics textbook that they used in the first year of college. They thought this book was especially good because it had different kinds of typeface -- bold black for the most important things to remember, lighter for less important things, and so on.

...

I stuck my finger in, and I started to read: "Triboluminescence. Triboluminescence is the light emitted when crystals are crushed..."

I said, "And there, have you got science? No! You have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You haven't told anything about nature -- what crystals produce light when you crush them, why they produce light. Did you see any student go home and try it? He can't.

Feynman hated the way Brazilians taught science; he refused to call it science at all. He felt the students were not learning anything meaningful about the natural world around them; they were just memorising words and numbers without learning how to relate these abstractions to the real-world concepts they represent.

Judging Books By Their Covers describes what happened when Feynman served on a board of parents and educators preparing the list of approved textbooks for the state of California. Feynman again found himself infuriated by the books, because they explained everything in a completely unrelatable manner:

I turned the page. The answer was, for the wind-up toy, "Energy makes it go." And for the boy on the bicycle, "Energy makes it go." For everything, "Energy makes it go."

Now that doesn't mean anything. Suppose it's "Wakalixes." That's the general principle: "Wakalixes makes it go." There's no knowledge coming in. The child doesn't learn anything; it's just a word!

What they should have done is to look at the wind-up toy, see that there are springs inside, learn about springs, learn about wheels, and never mind "energy." Later on, when the children know something about how the toy actually works, they can discuss the more general principles of energy.

The whole book is a thoroughly entertaining piece of literature, and there is more to learning and academia in it than the bits and pieces I have just quoted. The opening essays which deal with Feynman's childhood in particular show how he himself first learned and developed an interest for science. I hope you find this book useful in thinking about the purpose of education, and how we should go about fulfilling this purpose.

Delay in Science and Math decision

Looks like the new Education Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, has decided to defer the decision on whether to continue teaching Science and Math in English until he is "satisfied with the analysis about what are effects from the current policies and what could be improved or if there is a need to amend the policies".

This is part of the same newspaper report by the Malaysian Insider.

“We are looking at some research carried out by a number of independent bodies. They have given me feedback which is not very similar to what the round table discussion that we have. Some round table do not have enough facts and evidences.

“There are a lot of feedback which I think has to be looked at and we are prepared to wait a little bit longer because whatever decision that the government is going to make on this issue is important because we do not want to be seen as a flip flop in terms of administering this issue,” Muhyiddin said.

He added that the Ministry is open to any parties that are willing to share their views on the issue and that he will only decide when the time is right.

“What is important in this stage is that many parties have given their own opinions. Some agreed and others have disagreed. What is important is the future of our national language, the importance of the English language and also the future of our children,” Muhyiddin said.

This issue has been debated ad nauseum and I'm sure that enough trees have been felled and enough coffee drunk over round tables and discussions to give a perfectly healthy man diabetes.

I don't think this is a problem that is particular to the Malaysian political system. In any country with a parliamentary system, when there is a change in not only the Minister in charge of a certain Ministry but also the Prime Minister, it is very likely that the new Minister in question would not just blindly adopt the positions of his predecessor.

In this case, the former Education Minister, Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein, did not make any decision on whether the teaching of Science and Math in English would continue next year. Hence, it is only natural that Muhyiddin would not want to make a quick decision that may be uniformed, at least on his part.

But still, one cannot help but think that at the end of the day, whatever decision that will be made, will come at the expense of the students themselves since this delay will probably lead to delays in possible changes to the curriculum, the textbooks, etc...

This kind of delay almost makes me wish that Muhyiddin and the government of the day will just bite the bullet and make a decision on this and then take the heat from it. Whatever decision they make, there are bound to be some groups who will be unhappy. So might as well bite the bullet sooner rather than later.

Science and Math in English - Writing on the Wall

I wrote this in December of last year - "I suspect that a compromise decision may be made. Either continue teaching S&M in English at the secondary school level or start after Primary 3."

A recent piece by the Malaysian Insider - written by Leslie Lau, who has strong links to BN leaders, had this to say - The government is likely to scrap the policy of using English to teach science and mathematics in primary schools while maintaining it for secondary schools. Education Ministry sources told The Malaysian Insider today that the compromise in policy will be recommended to the Cabinet for a final decision soon in an effort to resolve a controversy which has been brewing for months.

Frankly, I would have liked the policy to continue and improve on its implementation. Now we are in a half way house where neither side is really happy and students and teachers continue to be confused. No one wins.

Majority of PMR Science Answers in English

Headline in the Star today - 51.2% of candidates chose English and English only to answer their PMR Science exam compared with 30.8% who answer in Malay and 18% who used a combination of the two. In the previous year, only 21.5% used English and only English. This is a pretty big jump. I would have liked to see the breakdown for Math as well to see if there was a similar jump. Perhaps this may be a sign that there will not be a complete reversion to the previous policy of teaching S&M in BM or mother tongue at the primary school level? I suspect that a compromise decision may be made. Either continue teaching S&M in English at the secondary school level or start after Primary 3.

Seeking Public Feedback: S&M in English

I know that this issue has been flogged to death but I had a thought about this yesterday. Regardless of the outcome, there will be groups that will be unhappy. But one thing which I commend the Ministry of Education for is that they did expend time and resources to seek feedback from different groups. This is a far cry from the way this policy was implemented which was basically a executive decision with little or no debate.

According to a Star report, MOE has held 5 roundtable meetings thus far soliciting feedback from different 'stakeholders' including representatitives from PTAs, NGOs and academics. In addition, MOE also presented some of their internal papers and analysis on the UPSR results to some of these stakeholders which I thought was a progressive way of allowing the stakeholders to evaluate the findings of the MOE and then discuss those findings.

In addition, the MOE was flexible enough to put different proposals on the table.

The proposals are:

> Stick to Mathematics and Science in English;

> Revert to Bahasa Malaysia;

> Let primary schools teach both subjects in the mother tongue and secondary schools use English;

> Let primary schools decide for themselves;

> Mathematics and Science be taught in Bahasa Malaysia and mother tongue for Years One to Three and in English from Year Four onwards;

> A combination of mother tongue in the first three years and a choice of mother tongue or English after that; and

> The two subjects will not be taught in Years One to Three and instead be integrated into other subjects.

Some may criticize the fact that putting these options on the table is just for show that the Ministry has already made up its mind but I do think that there was a serious effort on the part of the MOE officials to incorporate at least some of the feedback they received from the different stakeholders into their thinking process.

Ultimately the decision will probably be influenced by political as much as educational motivations but I think the MOE should be commended for the way they approached this issue. Especially when you consider the manner in which this executive decision was 'imposed' on Malaysians 6 years ago. The Minister, his Deputy and the DG of MOE should be commended for this.

The Star SMS Poll, Tuesday 16 Dec 2008

Have your say!

The Star SMS Poll, Tuesday 16 Dec 2008

Should Mathematics and Science continue to be taught in English in primary schools?

YES - type STAR NEWS1 A and send to 32088

NO - type STAR NEWS1 B and send to 32088

Polling begins at 7am and ends at 5pm today, Tuesday 16 Dec 2008. Each SMS will cost 30 sen. In the case of multiple entries, only your last vote will be taken into account.

The selfishness of all sides

In case any of our readers are wondering, no, I've not lost track of the current debate on teaching Science and Math in English. Partly because of time and partly because of the complexity and the deep feelings which all sides have on this issue, I've tried to take a little bit more time to digest and reflect on the latest round of reactions and counter-reactions to this issue. My gut tells me that the Education Minister, Hishamuddin Tun Hussein, will probably revert to teaching Science and Math in BM, Chinese and Tamil at the primary school level but allow this policy to continue at the secondary school level. It will be a political decision, even if the Minister says otherwise. The sad thing for me is that most of the people who are pushing for a reversion back to the old policy are doing it for selfish reasons and do not have the benefit of the students in mind. I'll explain what I mean by this.

Most of those who are pushing for a reversion to the previous policy of teaching Science and Math either in BM or in a student's mother tongue (Chinese and Tamil) are doing so because of 'nationalist' reasons. I say this because of a few reasons. Firstly, the results for the first batch of students who have undergone 6 years of this policy and took their UPSR exams recently, have not been announced yet. These will be made public soon, according to the Minister. If the results have not yet been divulged, I'm not sure if any of these groups who want to revert to teaching in BM, Chinese or Tamil, can make the claim that the policy has caused a deterioration in the Science and Math results of these students. They may point to anecdotal evidence for this occurring but they would not have been able to back it up with the proper statistics.

Secondly, all or most of these groups 'claim' that they do think that improving the command of English among students is something that they care about and is something important to them, but almost all of them do not put forth any credible suggestions on how the standard of English among our students can be improved after the reversion of teaching Science and Math back to BM, Chinese or Tamil. Other than the not very helpful suggestion of putting more resources into improving the teaching of English itself. My sense is that these groups would not protest one iota if the they got their way on the Science and Math issue and nothing is done about improving the quality of English courses in our schools.

It seems a little ironic to me that the different 'nationalist' groups, who are usually at each other's throats, can unite over this issue because of their aversion to the policy of teaching Science and Math in English. While one may doubt the efficacy of this policy in terms of either improving the quality of English or the standard of Science and Math among our students, I have no doubt that reverting to the previous policy, without doing anything else, will definitely NOT improve the standard of English among our students.

I have a few thoughts on this issue after having a long conversation with a friend a few weeks back. I'll share them with you here. There is no way that the command of the 'mother tongue' among Malay, Chinese and Indian students will be and has been significantly affected by the teaching of Science and Math in English, especially if they come from families where the dominant language is their mother tongue. They will continue to remain proficient in these languages. Their job prospects in the future will not be affected because they did not study Science and Math in their mother tongue.

In addition, I do not suspect that the results of any of these students in Science and Math would have been greatly affected by this policy change. My rationale for this is simple. The results of students is affected much more by their home environment firstly and by the quality of teachers, secondly, regardless of what language they teach in. Students from families which are stable, middle class and who have degrees and / or are teachers themselves are likely to do better in school and in Science and Math compared to students from families which are less financially stable. Students from urban areas are much more likely to do better in school because they are likely to have better teachers in their schools.

Let me give you a more concrete example. I have a friend who's about to graduate from Duke. His family is from a semi-rural part of Selangor and he was from a Chinese primary school and a national secondary school were the main medium of communication was Chinese even though all of the subjects were taught in BM. He probably had a better command of English than many of his peers because of his diligence but he would be the first one to admit that the standard of his English was nowhere near that of his counterparts from the urban areas in Penang, PJ / KL and Ipoh. He was a good student (all A1s in his SPM except for Chinese). Because he could not get a JPA scholarship (A2 in Chinese was his 'downfall'), he looked for other avenues including applying to the United World College (UWC) system. He got the scholarship but it was clear to him that his preparation as well as his standard of English was nowhere near those who applied and also got this scholarship. In fact, he was the fist person from a Chinese school background to successfully apply for and get this scholarship.

My point of bringing up this person's experience is this. The networks that can be found in urban areas that help kids apply for scholarships such as the Asean scholarship or the UWC scholarship cannot be replicated in the rural areas or even in the Chinese schools in the urban areas by having Science and Math taught in English. But by forcing these kids and exposing them to English earlier in life (meaning from the primary school level), you would be giving SOME of the them the opportunity to be exposed to things that you would only have gotten through a decent command of English, including the opportunity to apply for scholarships in overseas universities and also private institutions locally. Not having any exposure to English at an early age provides an immediate disadvantage to these students. Not to mention the impact it would have on their job prospects later in life.

I know I am going to accused of being elitist when I say this but if one were to do a survey of the non-Malays in the top universities in the UK, Australia and the US, one would find that those who are NOT from a Chinese primary school background would be severely over represented, even after controlling for things like family background and income.

The hypocrisy of the situation is ever worse when one considers that many of the leaders in these 'nationalist' organizations actually have the means and the opportunity and the networks to have their children achieve a relatively proficient level of English. Certainly to a level which would enable many of them to apply and gain entry into some of the top universities in the English speaking world.

Furthermore, my sense is that those who would be the worst affected by a reversion back to the policy of teaching Science and Math in the mother tongue language are Malay students in rural areas. Chinese students, and to a lesser extent, Indian students, can find alternative ways of pursuing a higher education in Taiwan or China or India and even gain employment in these countries after that, especially with the rapidly growing economies of China and India. But even then, the ability to have a good command of English are important in both these countries especially in China where many locals are making themselves more marketable by learning English. (Indeed one of the strengths of Msian workers in China is that their command of Chinese is as good as the locals but they have a far superior command of English. I'm talking about those from Chinese schools of course.)

The Malay kids from the rural areas don't have this option. If their command of English is not good by the time they enter university, their employment options are extremely limited and their promotion prospects are also extremely limited.

One of the main beneficiaries of the low standard of English in our country is the limited number of professionals of all races who possess a good command of English. Ironically, the middle class parents from English speaking backgrounds in the major cities in Malaysia should join in the chorus of these 'nationalists' by insisting that the ministry reverts back to its old policy of teaching Science and Math in BM, Chinese and Tamil. Better yet, ignore the slide in the standard of English in this country. This way, their sons and daughters can continue to benefit by having the advantage of being more proficient in this language compared to their peers from non English speaking backgrounds, especially those from the rural areas.

I will propose one suggestion here which I think may be part of an overall program that may reduce this rural-urban divide in terms of the standard of English of our students. It probably will make a small dent in this divide but it's a start. I propose that the government set up something that is similar to Teach for America or Americore where teachers / individuals are given incentives to spend a year or two or three to teaching English (or other subjects) in rural schools. I recall that something like that was arranged by UKEC (sorry for the earlier error) called Project Kalsom but what I'm proposing is something more long term and involves professionals / students / individuals spending more than one week or two in the rural areas. This way, these teachers can not only bring their skills in terms of teaching of different subjects in English but also bring their know how in terms of teaching these kids how to apply for different scholarships and also exposing them to the larger world beyond that in their own 'kampungs' so to speak.

Another suggestion put forth is the establishment of rural Islamic schools that uses English as the main medium of instruction. This was put forth by Bakri Musa who discusses this issue in great detail and with great measure. I'd encourage everyone who's interested in this issue to read Bakri's post.

To conclude, I'd advise everyone who has an interest in this issue of think of the implications of reverting to the previous policy of teaching Science and Math in BM, Chinese or Tamil. Think specifically of what other policies can and should be introduced to improve the standard of English among Malaysian students especially those from rural areas and those from non-English speaking backgrounds. Especially if you think that having a good command of English is an important asset to possess.

UPSI Study on S&M

Managed to locate an NST report on the UPSI study. You can download the study from the NST page. Bakri was certainly right about the lack of controls in the study. Would the Malay students from the rural areas have done better if the tests were in BM? This kind of control groups should be standards in these sorts of studies. And the fact that many students could not fill in the blank in 'He...to school' is not so much an indictment of the teaching of S&M in English but the appalling teaching of English. The more I read about this issue, the more I'm convinced that we should just continue with the teaching of S&M in English as a commitment towards improving the standard of English throughout our education system. If we revert to the old policy, I don't see the possibility of sufficient resources being devoted to this cause.

TEACHING OF MATHS AND SCIENCE IN ENGLISH: Study reveals policy's flaws

TANJUNG MALIM: Five years after schools began teaching Mathematics and Science in English, tests on thousands of students have revealed poor scores in these subjects.
The tests and surveys, part of a study of that policy, have also shown that the majority of students still find it hard to follow Mathematics and Science lessons in English.

Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) put over 3,000 Year Five pupils and about 2,800 Form Two students around the country through short Mathematics, Science and English language tests between February last year and January.

The schoolchildren were from a mix of urban, rural and vernacular schools in Peninsular Malaysia.

The tests were made up of modified past-year examination questions. Some were taken straight out of textbooks.

Some 1,700 Year Five pupils tested this January had a mean score of 7.89 out of a maximum 20 for Mathematics.

The results were not much better for Science: a mean of 4.08 out of 14. English proficiency was not good either: a mean of 11.87 out of 31.

The mean scores of Malay and Orang Asli pupils were also much lower than those of the Chinese and Indians, said study leader Professor Emeritus Datuk Isahak Haron.

Isahak has called the policy a failure, particularly in terms of its impact on Malay students in national schools (Sekolah Kebangsaan), and is asking for a return to the teaching of Mathematics and Science in Bahasa Malaysia.

In the survey, many Year Five pupils told researchers they found it hard to learn Mathematics and Science in English, saying they did not understand the lessons.

In one sample, less than a fifth of the Year Five Malay students surveyed considered it easy to learn Science in English and only about a third thought it was easy to learn Mathematics in English.

When a sample of 1,300 Malay students were asked how well they understood the Mathematics and Science lessons when it was taught in English, over 60 per cent said they only understood the lessons "sometimes".

The policy had even failed in its aim of improving the pupils' command of English, said Isahak, a lecturer at the Faculty of Cognitive Science and Human Development.

Students struggled to correctly complete even simple sentences, he said, citing the following sentence in a passage taken out of a school textbook: "He ..... to bed" (The answer is "went".)

An average of 14 per cent and 19 per cent (two different groups) got the answer right.

Even the highest score according to racial breakdown -- 41 per cent of Chinese students in one group answered correctly -- did not speak well of the policy's aim of improving English.

Isahak suggested that it would do more good to allocate more time, staff and money to the teaching of English at the primary school level.

He urged a change in how the language was taught in schools. He said the standardised syllabus should be scrapped in favour of lessons tailored to suit the abilities of different students.

The UPSI study also incorporated findings from other surveys of secondary school students that pointed to similar problems.

Shortly after the policy was implemented in 2003, Associate Professor Hashima Jalaluddin of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia interviewed 43 teachers and 971 Form One students from six schools in the central and southern states of Peninsular Malaysia .

Most of the teachers said students had problems following Mathematics and Science lessons in English, while 70 per cent of the students said they would be more interested if the two subjects were taught in Bahasa Malaysia.

Only a quarter said they had no problem following the lessons in English.

In 2004, Zainuddin Bikum surveyed 229 students in two schools in Kuala Kubu Baru, Selangor, for his dissertation at UPSI and found that more than half of the group was facing difficulties.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia's Professor Juriah Long found that about half the students in both urban and rural schools were worried because they found it difficult to follow Mathematics and Science in English. This was one of the results of her 2005 survey of over 7,000 Form Two students nationwide.

Her study, which also looked at the location of schools and the socio-economic background of students, found the concern was greater among Malay students, those in rural schools, and poor students.


Isahak said Malay students in national schools, mostly in rural areas and from lower socio-economic backgrounds, had lost out the most as a result of the decision to teach Maths and Science in English.

The ones who gained from the policy were a small percentage of Malay students from upper middle class families who went to good schools, he said.

However, UPSI's own test results showed Year Five Malay students from rural schools scored highest in nine out of 10 Maths questions and two out of seven Science questions compared with Malay students in big town and city schools.

Meanwhile, Malay students in city schools consistently fared the lowest.

Isahak believes the difference in the percentages is marginal and because there are more Malay students in rural areas, it is these students who will be most affected.

Bakri Musa's view on S&M in English

A well thought out piece by Bakri Musa. I got this through email and I don't think Bakri has posted it up on his website yet. I'll link it when its posted online. In the meantime, I've reproduced the article below. It makes reference to a UPSI study on the issue at hand. I'll try to locate a copy of this study and look further into it.

Continue Teaching Science and Mathematics in English

M. Bakri Musa

In May 2003, five months after the government started the teaching of science and mathematics in English in our schools, the Ministry of Education produced a “study” with the incredulous findings of significant improvement in our students’ achievements! All in five months!

Now five years later, research from the Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) showed the very opposite results. What gives?

Both studies were prominently and uncritically reported in our mainstream media. That first study was presumably swallowed whole by our policymakers to justify continuing their policy. Rest assured that this second one too would be used for a similar purpose, as an excuse to jettison that same policy.

Despite many attempts I was unable to get a copy of that first study. Nor have I seen it published in any journal, or find any paper credited to its author, raising questions on the credibility of the “study” and competence of its “researcher.”

To the credit of its authors, this later paper is freely available on the Internet, all 153 pages of it. Its lead author is an emeritus professor, a title reserved for retired accomplished scholars, with a dean and deputy dean as his coauthors. Despite its impressive authorship, this study is deeply flawed in its design and conclusions. It does however, expose many weaknesses in the implementation of the policy, in particular the lack of teachers fluent in English.

Embarrassingly Flawed Study

The most glaring deficiency of this second study is its lack of any control group. This is basic in any research design. As the English language policy applies to all schools, you obviously cannot find a control group among current students. You can however find historical control groups by using the test scores of earlier comparable pupils who had been taught and tested in Malay.

With some ingenuity we could still have concurrent control groups, for example, Malaysian pupils attending English schools like Alice School and International School. Another would be adults fluent in English, or even the teachers. If those adults and students in English schools did equally poorly, then clearly the test is not reliable.

When I look at the test questions, it is not only the teachers who are deficient in English, so too are the test makers! Some of the questions are convoluted and would challenge even those fluent in English.

The second flaw is that there is minimal statistical analysis of the data. The pupils were tested and the results simply collated in pages and pages of raw data presented in dull, repetitive and uninformative tables. The authors must be graphically-challenged; they seem to have not heard of pie charts or bar diagrams.

There is also no attempt in delineating the roles of the many variables the researchers have included, like teachers’ English fluency, parents’ educational levels, and pupils’ geographic background (urban versus rural). To do that the data would have to be subjected to more sophisticated statistical analyses, beyond the simple analysis of variance used by the authors. Thus we do not know whether those students’ test scores could be correlated with their parents’ educational levels (a well-acknowledged factor) or teachers’ fluency in English.

There are numerous conclusions based on just simplistic summations of the data, with such statements as X percent of Malay students finding the study of science “easy” compared to Y percent of Chinese or Indians feeling likewise, or R percent of Malay students scoring high versus S percent of their Chinese counterparts. It seems that Malaysian academics, like their politicians, cannot escape the race trap.

These studies were conducted in January, February and July. Even the dumbest students knew that those were not the examination months. They knew those tests “don’t count;” thus skewing the results. The only way to make them take the test seriously would be to incorporate it into their regular examinations.

Besides, in January and February those students had just returned from their long end-of-year holidays during which considerable attrition of knowledge occurred. The difference between the racial groups may have nothing to do with academics but on such extraneous matters as how fast they settle down to their studies.

Of the 27 references cited, there is surprisingly no article from refereed journals. Most (14) are government-sponsored surveys, press releases, and newspaper articles, unusual for a scholarly paper. There are a few books cited, with the most recent published in 2002. There is considerable lag time between what is written in books versus the current state of knowledge. For that you would need journals and attend symposia.

Consequently the researchers’ review on bilingual education is dated. Contrary to their conclusion, it is now accepted that exposing children at a young age to bilingual education confers significant linguistic, cognitive and other advantages. The authors’ recommendation that pupils be taught only in their mother tongue and learn a second language later at a much older age is not supported by modern research.

Studies using functional MRIs (imaging studies) of the brain show that children who are bilingual at an earlier age use their brain more efficiently as compared to those who acquire those skills as adults. For example, when asked to translate between the two languages, “native” bilingual speakers use only one part of their brain while those who are bilingual as an adult use two.

Other cognitive advantages to “native” bilingual speakers include the ability to grasp abstract concepts faster, precisely the intellectual skill helpful in learning mathematics and higher-level science. The higher scores for non-Malays may well be the consequence of their earlier and more extensive exposure to bilingualism than Malays.

Revealing Findings

The study nonetheless reveals many useful findings. I fear however, that these nuggets of information would be lost by those who care only for the study’s unjustified conclusion to discontinue the present policy and revert to teaching science and mathematics in Malay. That would be a retrogressive step.

This study is only a snapshot; it does not enlighten us as to trend. It could be that the results would continue to improve. It is thus presumptuous for the authors to make a sweeping policy recommendation based only a limited snapshot study, and a poorly-designed one at that.

UPSI in its previous incarnation as Sultan Idris Teachers’ College was a hotbed of Malay nationalism. This study is less an academic research and more political polemic camouflaged as a pseudo-scientific study to justify its authors’ nationalist bias. Their data and methodology just do not support their conclusion.

The study found that fewer than 15 percent of the teachers were fluent in English, and that most teach using a combination of both languages. That is putting it politely. In reality they use bastardized or “pidgin” English. If those teachers lack English language skills, how could they teach any subject in that language? The fault here is not with the policy, rather its implementation. We should first train the teachers.

In its naivety the government spent over RM3 billion to equip these teachers with computers, LCDs and “teaching modules” to help them in the classroom. Many of those computers are now conveniently “stolen,” plugged with viruses, or simply left to gather dust as those teachers lack the skills to use them effectively.

The only beneficiaries of that program were UMNO operatives who secured those lucrative contracts. Had the government spent those precious funds to hire new teachers fluent in English, our students would have been better served, and the policy more effectively implemented.

This study missed a splendid opportunity to find out what those students, parents and teachers felt about the policy. It was as if those researchers and their field workers (undergraduates in education and thus our future teachers) were interested only in administering those tests, collecting their data, and then getting back to campus.

Surely those parents and teachers had something to say on the policy. What do the teachers feel about the billions spent on computers? Are they eager to learn and teach in English or do they harbor nationalist sentiments and resent the policy? Those surveys would have helped considerably towards implementing the policy better.

A Better Way

I support the teaching of science and mathematics in English. I go further and would have half the subjects in our national schools be taught in English, including Islamic Studies. The objective should be to produce thoroughly or “native” bilingual graduates, able to read, write and even dream in Malay and English. That is the only way to make our graduates competitive.

I put forth my ideas on achieving this in my earlier (2003) book, An Education System Worthy of Malaysia. I would start small, restricting the program to our residential schools where the students are smarter, teachers better, and facilities superior. Work out the kinks there first, only then expand the program.

I would also convert some teachers’ colleges into exclusively English-medium institutions to train future teachers of English, science, and mathematics.

In rural areas where the level of English in the schools and community is low, I would bring back the old English-medium schools, but modifying it significantly with pupils taught exclusively in English for the first four years (“total immersion”). Malay would be introduced only in Year V, and only as one subject.

Since Malay would not be taught in the first few years and only a limited subject later on, admission to such schools would be restricted only to those with already near-native fluency in Malay or whose habitual language is Malay. Further, such schools would be set up only where the background level of Malay in the community is high, essentially only in the kampongs.

If we were to do otherwise, as having such schools in the cities where the level of English in the community is high and Malay low, those graduates would not be fluent in our national language, as during colonial days. It would not be in the national interest to repeat that mistake. Besides, the problem of our students’ deficiency in English is most acute in rural areas. Thus it makes sense to establish English-medium schools there.

There are many challenges to the policy of teaching science and mathematics in English. One thing is certain. We will never resolve them if we listen to ambitious politicians playing to the gallery or rely on less-than-rigorous “researches.”

Science and Math in English - Alternative Views

Two additional letters advocating for the reversal of the policy of teaching Science and Math in English. The first, written by Khairy Jamaluddin, is very well argued. The point he raised in regard to phasing in the teaching of Science and Math in English at the secondary level is particularly intriguing. This is a glimpse of a Khairy who is fully capable of making sound and cogent arguments when he is not playing up to his 'base'. The second is written by a Malaysian PhD student in Australia. He makes a similar point that it is the standard of English among English teachers in Malaysia which needs to be improved. On a related note, I wonder how many politicians who advocate for a return to teaching Science and Math in BM will actually send their kids to a public school or choose the route of a private school where English is much more widely spoken and taught.

Khairy's letter first.

IT has been almost a year since I called for a review of the teaching of Maths and Science in English while debating the motion on education at the Umno general assembly. I did so based on feedback from grassroots members and also a consistent opposition to the policy since it was announced by the previous prime minister.
I had felt then, as I still do now, that the policy was half-baked, lacking in any rigorous analysis and another attempt at putting a quick-fix band aid on a serious problem requiring structural reforms.

The report "Study reveals policy's flaws" (NST, Sept 7) sheds new light to justify my reservations about the policy. I feel the research conducted by Professor Emeritus Datuk Isahak Haron of Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris and other surveys of secondary school students pointing to similar problems must be perused exhaustively and could prove to be crucial in tilting the debate on the issue ahead of the government's promise to review its implementation next year.

For the sake of clarity and lest I be accused of being retrogressive in my thinking, I would like to reiterate that I believe most Malaysians are in agreement that a strong command of the English language is an essential prerequisite for any school-leaver who wants to understand and absorb the massive corpus of knowledge available in reference books written in English at the tertiary level, or any graduate who wants to compete in the marketplace.

The English language has become a basic requirement for students and job-seekers in this increasingly globalised world where it is, for now, the undisputed lingua franca.
The issue here is not the importance of English. That is self-evident and the education system must commit itself to making our students fluent in English. In fact, in my Umno debate I urged Malays to emulate other communities in Malaysia by becoming bilingual, even trilingual. The real issue here is how we improve our children's command of English. I believe strongly that it most definitely is not through a poorly conceived policy like the teaching of Maths and Science in English.

UPSI's findings proved my fears were real and it uncovered the harsh realities our students face in schools due to this flawed policy. In particular, the impact of the policy on Malay students in national schools especially in the rural areas and from lower socio-economic backgrounds has been catastrophic. Not only has it not improved the students' command of English, it has managed to hamper their understanding of mathematical and scientific concepts.

Furthermore, the problems and weaknesses of this policy are not confined to one ethnic group. The study revealed that the ones who gained from the policy were a small percentage of Malay students from upper middle-class families who went to good, urban schools. The paper further showed that even Chinese students struggled with learning Maths and Science when taught in English, demonstrating that this is a problem that cuts across ethnic lines.

In our effort to bridge the urban and rural divide, the gap between rich and poor, it is sad to see that in reality students in national schools, mostly in rural areas and from lower socio-economic backgrounds, have lost out the most as a result of the decision to teach Maths and Science in English.

The full report of the study also confirmed the often-heard anecdotal evidence that one of the key problems is that teachers are finding it difficult to teach in English and consequently students are having a hard time understanding these lessons that are conducted by teachers who themselves are not proficient in the language. As a result, almost 85 per cent of the teachers end up teaching Maths and Science in a mixture of English and Bahasa Malaysia, exposing a fundamental flaw in the implementation of the policy. How do you expect to answer exam questions in English when it is not entirely taught in English in the first place?

I also find myself concurring with the study leader's suggestion that it would be better to allocate more time, staff and money to the teaching of English at the primary school level rather than pursuing the teaching of Maths and Science in English. I have made this point repeatedly, that English is best learnt by the teaching of the English language and not by conflating it with subjects such as Maths and Science.

And to answer the point made by Samuel Yesuiah in his letter "Let's continue with the policy" (NST, Sept 8), if our students are given a sound foundation in the English language itself with proper instruction given to grammar, vocabulary and syntax, they will have few problems understanding "science reference books and journals in English at universities". They don't need to be taught Maths and Science in English to read reference books in English later on. They just need to be proficient in English, which clearly this policy has failed to achieve.

I wrote to this newspaper in November last year calling for immediate improvements to the teaching and learning of English in our schools. But that objective must not be pursued through a policy that not only falls short of its aim to improve English among our students but also seriously hampers their ability to learn Maths and Science.

It is high time we ditched this policy for the failure that it is and learnt from an episode of a flawed and ill-conceived policy defeating what were, I presume, noble intentions.

The second letter is written by Yap Soo Huey.

I WRITE to add to the current debate on the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English.

I graduated in 1999 from a small school in Penang where Science and Mathematics were taught in Bahasa Malaysia. Now, I am a scientist in a leading medical research institute in Australia and will be completing my PhD at the end of this year.

Since starting my PhD candidature in 2005, I have won five awards, including two awards at national conferences for Best Speaker (most other speakers were native English speakers) and one young investigator award at a prestigious international conference.

I am also an author in a major scientific publication and have more publications in the pipeline.

I am not alone in such success. There are two other Malaysians in the institute where I work, as well as senior scientists from Albania, Argentina, Armenia, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Sweden.

All of them are successful despite schooling in their respective national language!

Hence, my main points are:

1. It is not important for English to be the medium of instruction for Science and Mathematics. Stop wasting money and resources trying to implement this.

2. The standard of English in our schools has been deteriorating for so long that many of the teachers we have in schools are themselves not proficient in English.

3. The problem is the teaching of the English language itself. Don’t send Science and Mathematics teachers for English courses when some English teachers themselves need English courses, and English teachers who don’t need English courses need a useful syllabus from which to teach!

5. Don’t make the use of Bahasa Malaysia the scapegoat. It is important for Bahasa Malaysia to remain the medium of instruction in schools for the sake of national identity, which is vital for genuine national unity.

Finally, please identify and address the real problems in our school system.

A student competent in English and Science/Mathematics separately can communicate Science/Mathematics in English even if he/she learnt it in Bahasa Malaysia.

I have had no formal Chinese education, and both my parents barely speak Mandarin. The extent of my Chinese education is weekly tuition classes when I was in primary school.

Yet, with my minimal proficiency in Mandarin, I’ve engaged in lengthy scientific discussions, mainly in Mandarin, with scientists from China and Taiwan on many occasions with good outcomes.

Make sure Science and Mathematics are taught properly, and don’t discriminate against students who are poor in English but may have the aptitude for Science or Mathematics.

Communication can come after understanding has been established.

YAP SOO HUEY,
George Town.

Two letters on Science and Math policy

Wanted to highlight two letters, one written to the DG of the MOE and another written to NST, on the possible reversion in the policy of teaching Science and Math in English. I've been agnostic on this issue thus far but I think both writers make good points in favor of continuing this policy, flawed as it may be. Better to try to improve its implementation instead of doing another U-turn.

Letter to the NST, written by Cheng Yi, who's also a friend of mine.

I REFER to Zainul Arifin’s “Let parents decide on English policy” (NST, Sept 3).
It is indeed ironic that many of our prominent politicians send their children to private or international schools where English reigns supreme.

When Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced the decision to teach Mathematics and Science in English, it rekindled my hope in the local education system.

As it is, most of my peers had opted to send their kids to either Chinese or private schools. But with the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English, I thought there was perhaps a spark of hope in our national schools.

I am sure that many pupils from the rural areas will suffer initially but, as Zainul says, kids are better adapters and adopters than adults. I am sure that many of our English-speaking elite did not hail from English-speaking families. I have many Malay friends who speak perfect English although their parents did not.

To children from English-speaking backgrounds, it doesn’t make much difference.

When I was doing my matriculation in Australia, although I studied in Bahasa Malaysia-medium schools, I had no problem coping with the sudden switch to English when learning Mathematics and Science.

However, my peers who did not speak English (this includes those of Chinese descent) did have problems adapting. As a result, most of their High School Certificate scores were compromised.

At the end of the day, it is better to suffer a bit in primary school than to struggle learning a language later in life.

It is this same rationale that persuades many Malaysian Chinese parents to send their children to Chinese schools. “Although we don’t speak Chinese at home, the kids can cope", I often hear them say. Children do pick up much more easily than adults.

I have yet to meet anyone who says, “Oh, I am so glad we did not study Mathematics and Science in English during our school days".

Extra knowledge is a good thing. I look at the pullouts in the NST like Didik, and am impressed by the Mathematics and Science questions in English. It gives our syllabus an international feel. And it gives me no qualms to send my children to a national school.

Zainul’s suggestion for a referendum within each school is a great one. I am almost sure that parents in my children’s school will vote to retain the policy of teaching Mathematics and Science in English.

The government should look into proper training of teachers. Don’t deprive the children of Malaysia of a brighter, international, global future because of bad implementation of a good policy.

The letter to the DG of the MOE. Much longer than the first.

YBhg Dato’ Alimuddin Dom, Director of Education

YBhg Dato’,

With reference to the above matter, I would like to present to you my view on why it's necessary to continue teaching of Maths and Science in English.
A brief introduction of myself and my family is necessary to get a better perspective. My wife and I, aged 42, finished our primary and secondary education in Sekolah Kebangsaan and subsequently graduated in accountancy and computer science, respectively, in Melbourne Australia. We have two children, Standard 1 and 6, schooling in Sekolah Kebangsaan Taman Megah Petaling Jaya.

On hindsight the decision to pursue my tertiary education in Australia was correct and every single penny well spent despite the major financial obstacle and various challenges. I majored in Computer Science and Instrumental Science and hence, Physics and Mathematics are the core subjects throughout the course. I never grasped Physics until my 1st year and consistently received distinction and the credit goes to Mr Jack Venema my physics lecturer. During my final year, National Productivity Board of Singapore interviewed me and offered me a job upon graduation and so did State Electricity Commission of Victoria. But I declined both offers because my heart tells me to return home to contribute to the nation.

Before I delve into why we should continue to teach Maths and Science in English, let’s look back at the history of our education policy. The change to medium of instruction in Bahasa Melayu began in 1970 for Standard 1 and by 1983 the whole exercise was completed in tertiary education [read here]. Which means we’ve used Bahasa Melayu as medium of instruction for Maths and Science for 32 years.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, our revered Bapa Permodenan, the architect of modern Malaysia, who transformed our agricultural economic base to manufacturing economic base, realized that if we don’t make our workforce be proficient in English, then the FDIs [Foreign Direct Investment - source of employment] will continue to bypass us. Already, we’re seeing a worrying trend of our traditional FDI investors like Motorola, Matsushita moving out to China, Vietnam, etc. and hence, his decision to change teaching of Maths and Science to English is one of his greatest gifts to Malaysia.

An extract of TDM’s speech entitled "Approaching 2020 – Major Trends that will Impact Malaysian Business" [read attachment for detail]

8. A mass consumer market will make local manufacturing more viable. And there are many things that we can produce. Like Korea and Taiwan we would learn to design and manufacture many things not just for our markets but for export as well.

9. Against this, expect increased and less restricted imports. We must be more competitive. We must develop skills in hi-tech products and we must pay higher wages. The days of low labour costs would have been over before 2020.

10. Our workers must be highly qualified and be trained in higher skills. The workers we would need must be able to handle and service automatic machines, not just assemble things. We will learn to design and produce some of these machines.

11. Training of the workers must be done at specialised training centres. Computer programmes will be needed to do this.

12. What all these means is the business of specialised education and training would become big business. The training centres would also cater for foreign students if we use English as a teaching medium.

13. Malaysia cannot any longer offer itself as a cheap labour country. But the chances are our highly trained workers would still cost less than similarly trained workers in the developed countries. This may mean a shifting of some middle range hi-tech industries to Malaysia.

14. Our advantage today is still the ability to take instructions in simple English. But there will be a spread of English language capabilities in China, Vietnam and other competitors of ours.

15. Accordingly our advantages seem likely to be eroded not only because others are acquiring working knowledge of English but we ourselves would probably downgrade learning of English.

16. I hope that the teaching of science and mathematics in English would continue. But I am not sure. If the decision is made not to, then the hi-tech industries are going to bypass us.

I agree with him that education system is one the most politicized subject. On his part, he has written detailed explanation entitled "MENGAJAR SAINS DAN MATEMATIK DALAM BAHASA INGGERIS" [read attachment for detail] addressing the Malay speaking community to convince them the importance of English. Personally, my encounter with a YB’s response on this matter ["..Mr 70% parents of vernacular schools are against it…] confirms TDM’s view. Lawmakers are more concerned about votes for their self-interest rather than nation interest by articulating to them to look at the big picture. Besides TDM, I have not heard of any other community leaders or lawmakers view on this very important matter.

TDM said "Malaysia is the most planned country in the world. But people do not follow the plans prepared for them. If people had followed the plans, we would have been a developed country by now." When TDM saw the opportunity in knowledge base economy, he quickly embarked on MSC in Cyberjaya. However, the FDI investors are not just interested in the first class infrastructures and venues and incentives. They needed competent IT workforce conversant in English but we could not provide enough for their needs. Instead, they have to recruit from Bangalore [our rival] which negates the purpose of MSC. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why Bill Gates setup their only offshore software development centre in Bangalore because they’ve largest pool software engineers in the world.

Education System must be versatile and evolving to be in-sync with the changing employment needs. A case study of a strategic planning of Singapore is worthwhile. When Singapore government decided to open the two casinos, even before the operators were selected, they have started to introduce courses related to this industry. This is so that by 2010 when the casinos are open for business, the required skill sets are available. These operators are one example of FDIs and one of the operators is our homegrown company ie Genting Berhad. On hindsight, had our education system been planned and executed properly according to our FDI investors’ needs, today MSC would have been another economic pillar and we would be closer to a developed nation.

In my opinion, if we analyse carefully, the noises getting louder against teaching of Maths and Science in English are groups of people complaining about the symptoms of bad implementation plan. I would like to use the analogy of a ship. Education policy is like a big ship and the captain is the head of MOE, teachers are the crews and students are the passengers. If we see an iceberg ahead, the captain will change the direction and it takes time to navigate to avoid the obstacle to reach the final destination.

I think the most important question our policymakers should ask is what should be the determinant of our education policy ? Is it not employability ? Parents and students take pain to consult career guidance about career opportunity. If we agree on this then let us look at the big picture, otherwise why bother to spend 3 years prep school + 6 years primary + 7 years secondary + 4 years tertiary = a whopping 20 years!

Who creates employment opportunity ? FDI investors like Intel, Dell, Samsung, Motorola, Matsushita, etc are some the names we are familiar with. What will attract them to Malaysia ? What makes Dell setup their worldwide callcentre and laptop manufacturing plant in Penang ? Perhaps, Penang workforce have the necessary skill sets and have the necessary English proficiency. The same question applies to Intel's chip design centre in Penang. It is a fact that FDIs are getting scarce and we are competing with China, Vietnam, India and not forgetting Thailand, Indonesia and Phillippines. Hence, we need to continue produce the same skill sets to attract more FDIs.

What type of employment should we focus then ? As mentioned earlier, under TDM’s administration we have diversified our economy to industrial/manufacturing base. In the E&E [Electrical & Electronics] industry, we have to move up the value chain. We can’t continue to rely on simple assembly manufacturing because countries like China and Vietnam are offering cheap low skill labour cost to companies like Motorola, Matsushita,etc. The other areas are biotechnology, information technology, telecommuncation, pharmaceutical, etc

In the era of globalisation, to attract inflow of FDIs we must have the capability of producing higher value-added products which demands medium to highly skill workforce with the ability to take instruction in English. The goods produced are then exported and in return we earn foreign currency. Also, the spin-off FDI to supporting goods and services industry is enormous which create more employment opportunity. Through these economic activities, the Government generates revenue in the form of taxes to pay for the expenditure as outlined in the yearly budget.

Shouldn’t we be consulting with our economic think-tank such as NEAC, EPU, Bank Negara, MIER, ASLI, CPPS, MITI, Economic Council [newly formed] since they’re at the forefront of dealing with inflow of FDIs before we make any hasty decision on such an important issue ?

In my opinion, the main issue that we should focus our attention on is to iron out the teething problem of implementation and not whether we should revert. I am quite disappointed with NUTP for changing its tune. On 8/3/08 NUTP was very supportive with an article on NST entitled "Do the math, keep it in English" to 4/9/08 postion entitled "Teaching Science and Mathematics in English: ‘Wrong to learn language this way". Perhaps, they should read TDM’s speech again, "Approaching 2020 – Major Trends that will Impact Malaysian Business". It's the function of teachers to execute the education policy to meet the needs of the nation.

I am not an educator but perhaps, I can give some input on the student perspective. Let’s examine some facts about the implementation, beginning with an extract of from newspaper. Earlier in the Dewan Rakyat, Deputy Education Minister Datuk Razali Ismail said the Government spent RM2.21bil on information and communication technology equipment in 2003 to implement the policy of teaching Mathematics and Science in English. He said another RM2.4mil was spent on software, RM317mil to train teachers and RM638mil as subject incentives.

Since when does equipment become more important than human in teaching. I graduated in Computer Science without owning a PC and those days writing a program was using punch card and a very tedious process, contrast to today.

From an economic standpoint, the money spent on the equipment is an outflow of foreign currency because they’re all imported [at most, we assembled it]. I would rather that the money be spent on training teachers which also ensure the money stays in our economy. Wouldn’t it be better used if we tapped on the retired teachers and implement ‘buddies’ system where a retired teacher is assigned one to one basis and complimented by night classes.

I disagree with the notion that our students can cope especially those in the rural area. If the teachers are well equipped and confident then the learning process will fall in place. Ultimately, it’s how the lesson is delivered. The success is making learning fun and relevant to daily life and not about mugging and as with my experience in Physics. Besides formal learning, in today’s digital era, students are exposed to the Internet for additional reference source.

I would like to relate a story about a Malay friend who is now a CEO of a statutory body. He was remembered as "a student who came to school on borrowed shoes" and one of very few Malays in an English medium school. He was proud to tell me that he received a Colombo Plan scholarship and a Bachelor of Arts in Australia. My point is that it’s duty of the policymakers to give everybody a chance especially those in the heartland, as a means to get out of poverty.

I think it’s far more productive for MOE and principals, teachers concerned to have continuous discussion to smoothen the edges rather than raising the white flag at this stage. Remember our teachers managed to switch the medium of instruction from English to Bahasa Melayu in 1970s and I don’t see any reason why we can’t do it now.

In conclusion, Malaysia needs to attract more FDIs bring us closer to a develop nation and hence, MOE needs to produce more employable workforce who possess technical skill set and good command of English. Therefore, it is necessary to continue with teaching of Maths and Science in English. History will be our judge for whatever decision you make!

Yours faithfully,
Benjamin Choo
(A Concern Bangsa Malaysia)

35% of Science and Math teachers lack English proficiency

Is it a surprise that the MOE is considering getting rid of teaching Science and Math in English when 35% of its teachers have a poor command of English? Again, this is one in a long line of bad implementation projects in the education system in Malaysia. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read this line:

The Government, he said, had provided all types of assistance to these teachers to improve their command of English, including monetary facilities to reference books and tuition classes. "We found that teachers used these monetary aids provided by the Ministry for other unrelated purposes," he added.

Bakri Musa's take on Science & Math in English

M Bakri Musa wrote this piece on his blog last week. I agree with most of this points. I'm agnostic when it comes to this issue since I recognize that there are pros and cons on both sides of the argument. I'm a pragmatist and I would choose the option which will bring about the most benefits with the least cost. Given that internal studies of the MOE have shown that teaching Science and Math in English doesn't really affect the results of students (I'd like to see the methodology though), I think that it makes sense to continue teaching both these subjects in English.

Continue Teaching Science and Mathematics in Malay

The government’s decision to revisit (and most likely do away with) the current teaching of science and mathematics in English is an instructive example of how an otherwise sensible policy could easily be discredited and then abandoned because of poor execution. Had there been better planning, many of the problems encountered could have been readily anticipated and thus avoided, or at least reduced. The policy would then more likely to succeed, and thus be accepted.

Ironically, only a year ago a Ministry of Education “study” pronounced the program to be moving along “smoothly,” with officials “satisfied” with its implementation. Now another “study” showed that there was no difference in the “performance” (whatever that term means or how they measure it) between those taught in Malay or English.

The policy was in response to the obvious deficiencies noted in students coming out of our national schools: their abysmal command of English, and their limited mathematical skills and science literacy. They carry these deficits when they enter university, and then onto the workplace.

The results are predictable. These graduates are practically unemployable. As the vast majority of them are Malays, this creates tremendous political pressure on the government to act as employer of last resort. Accommodating these graduates made our civil service bloated and inefficient, burdened by their deficient language and mathematical abilities.

This longstanding problem began in the late 1970s when Malay became the exclusive language of instruction in our public schools and universities. Overcoming this problem would be a monumental undertaking.

The greatest mistake was to underestimate the magnitude of the task, especially in overcoming the system’s inertia. Today’s teachers and policy makers are products of this all-Malay education system. Change would mean repudiating the very system that had produced them, a tough sell at the best of times.

In their naivety, ministry officials convinced themselves that such enormous obstacles as the teachers’ lack of English fluency could easily be overcome by enrolling them in short culup (superficial) courses that were in turn conducted by those equally inept in English. Or by simply providing these teachers with laptops programmed with instructional modules!

Even if we had had the best talents devoting themselves exclusively to implementing the policy, the task would still be huge. Unfortunately we have Hishammuddin Hussein as Minister of Education shepherding the change. An insightful innovator or an effective executive he is not. Being simultaneously an UMNO Youth Chief, he was also distracted in trying to pass himself off as the champion of Ketuanan Melayu.

These factors practically ensure the initiative’s failure. The tragic part is that the burden of the failure falls disproportionately on the rural poor, meaning Malays, a point missed by these self-professed nationalists. I would have thought that that alone would have motivated them to succeed.

A Better Way

Teaching science and mathematics in English would solve two problems simultaneously. One, considering the critical shortage of textbooks, journals, and other literature in Malay, teaching the two subjects in English would facilitate the acquisition of new knowledge by our students. With the exponential growth of new knowledge, it would be impossible to keep up solely through translations, even if we were to devote our entire intellectual resources towards that endeavor.

The other objective was to enhance the English fluency of our students. Of course if that were the only consideration, there are other more effective ways of achieving it, like devoting more instructional hours to the subject.

If, as the recent Ministry’s “study” indicates, there is no difference in performance between those taught in Malay or English, that in itself would favor continuing the program because of the twin benefits discussed earlier. Besides, changing course midstream would not only be disruptive but also counterproductive. Our educational system needs predictable stability and incremental improvements, not disruptive U-turns and faddish changes, especially in response to political pressures.

A more important point is this. Altering a politically pivotal and highly emotional public policy requires careful preparation and deliberate execution. If I were to implement the policy, this is what I would do. Lest readers think that this is hindsight wisdom on my part, rest assured that I had documented these ideas in my earlier book, long before the government even contemplated the policy.

Being prudent, as we are dealing with our children’s and nation’s future, I would begin with a small pilot project, analyze the problems, correct the deficiencies, and only then expand the program.

First, I would implement the policy initially only at primary and selected secondary schools, like our residential schools. The language requirements as well as the science and mathematical concepts at the primary level are quite elementary, and thus more readily acquired by the teachers. And at that level the pupils would not have to unlearn much as everything would still be new.

In schools where the background English literacy level of the pupils is low as in the villages, I would have the pupils take English immersion classes for a full term or even a year. We had earlier successful experiences with this with our Special Malay Classes and Remove classes. This strategy has also been tried successfully in America for children of non-English-speaking immigrants. Another idea I put forth in my earlier book is to bring back the old English schools in such areas. As the Malay literacy level in the community and at home is high, these pupils are unlikely to “forget” their own language.

At the secondary level, our residential schools get the best students and teachers. Consequently the program could be more easily implemented there as the learning curve would be steep, and mistakes more readily recognized and corrected. Once the kinks have been worked out, expand the program.

Second is the issue of teachers. Fortunately Malaysia has two large untapped reservoirs of talent: recently retired teachers trained under the old English-based system, and native English speakers who are either spouses of Malaysians or residents of this country. Given adequate compensation and minimal of hassles, they could be readily recruited.

I would add other incentives especially if they were to serve in rural areas where the need is most acute. Thus in addition to greater pay, I would give them first preference to teachers’ quarters.

A permanent solution would be to convert a number of existing teachers’ colleges into exclusively English-medium institutions to train future teachers of English, science, and mathematics. As the present teacher-trainees have limited English fluency, I would begin admitting them right away in January following their leaving school in December of the preceding year.

From that January till the regular opening of the academic year (sometime in July), these trainees would undergo intensive English immersion classes where their entire 24-hour day would be consumed with learning, speaking, thinking, and even dreaming in English. With the subsequent three years of additional instructions exclusively in English, these graduates would then be fully fluent in English.

With such quality programs, these graduates would be in great demand within and outside their profession. With their heightened English facility and mathematical competency, their educational opportunities would also expand as they could further their studies anywhere in the English-speaking world. With such bright prospects, these colleges would have no difficulty recruiting talented school leavers. Our teaching profession would also be enriched with the addition of such talents.

As for textbooks, there is no need to write new ones. The contents of these two subjects are universally applicable. Meaning, textbooks written for British students would be just as suitable for Malaysians, so we could select already available books. With its purchasing clout, the government could drive a hard bargain with existing publishers.

I hope Ministry of Education officials, including and especially Hishammuddin, would heed these factors when they review the current policy. They should continue the current policy, correct the evident errors, and strengthen the obvious weaknesses. The success of this policy would also mean success for our students, and our nation. That is a worthy pursuit for anyone with ambitions to one day lead the nation.

Political Expediency or Policy Flexibility?

5 years after the start of the policy of teaching Science and Math in English, it was recently announced that the UPSR exams for Science and Math would continue to be in English, BM, or in the vernacular language of a student's choice i.e. Chinese or Tamil. My gut reaction to this policy is one of befuddlement and confusion. I was imagining me explaining this policy to some of my American friends. So, Science and Math are taught in English in Malaysia, my American friend would ask. Yes, I said, but exams in these two subjects can be taken in BM, English, Chinese or Tamil. So, what's the point of teaching these two subjects in English, my American friend would continue. I don't know, would be my honest response!

You can read about this issue in various Star reports - here, here, here, here, here and here.

Is this decision an indication of policy flexibility on the part of the Ministry of Education because some students still would not be able to handle exams in Science and Math in English? Or rather, is this political expediency on the part of the Ministry and the Minister, Hishamuddin Tun Hussein, so as not to offend the Chinese politicians in the MCA as well as politicians in UMNO, and to a certain extent, certain segments of the voting population as well?

I suspect that it is the latter rather than the former. Furthermore, I take this as an indication of the failure of the Ministry to successfully implement the policy of teaching Science and Math in English. The excuse that some students in the rural areas still cannot cope with taking these two subjects in English is plainly laughable in that these are the same students who have been taught these two subjects in English for 6 years! The same excuse, hence, is also not valid among those in Chinese primary schools!

The decision not to have an 'English only' UPSR exam for these two subjects sends a signal to teachers in rural areas as well as those in Chinese schools that they can 'revert' to teaching these two subjects in BM and Chinese (and for those in Tamil schools to teach in Tamil). As far as I know, there's no 'monitoring' or 'policing' mechanisms in schools to ensure that teachers actually teacher these two subjects in English. So, if students still have the choice of the language in which to take these two subjects at the UPSR level, wouldn't it be 'easier' for teachers in rural areas and in Chinese schools to teach these two subjects in a language which they have a better command in, presumably BM and Chinese?

While implementing the 'English only' policy would have some short term consequences in that the scores in some of these 'vulnerable' areas might be affected, I fear that the medium to long term consequences would be greater. I wouldn't be surprised if in 2 to 3 years time, an announcement is made that the policy to teach Science and Math in English would be stopped because it was found that it had not achieved its objective of improving the standard of English.

I think this would have been a hard decision to make politically but I think the Minister should have put his foot down and fend off the critics and the naysayers. While some may criticize the efficacy of the policy of teaching Science and Math in English in the first place, I think that to give this policy a fair chance to succeed, it should be taken to its logical end, which is to use only English for Science and Math exams at the UPSR level. By allowing students to choose their language of choice to take these two exams at the UPSR level is to doom this policy to failure as teachers and students 'defect' to learning these two subjects in their own language of choice.