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.