My blog prompt: View on Dr Najib's decision to scrap the use of English to teach math and science by 2012

Recently, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, the current Prime Minister of Malaysia decided to change the medium of instruction of maths and science from English to Malay. This is supposedly because the usage of Malay in maths and sciences will instill patriotism for Malaysians as well as for Malaysians to better grasp the Malay language.

This is not a good decision to me. Being a Malaysian Chinese, I am personally for the introduction of English as a medium of instruction of the sciences. However, I also understand where some of the Malays are coming from in arguing that the introduction of English will diminish Malay language and culture. This is the cultural and emotional aspect, and lets not kid ourselves and say the mother tongues will remain intact under the onslaught of the English language. There is no debate over whether proliferation of English, an international prestige dialect, will cause mother tongue usage to drop - any sociolinguist worth his salt will tell you yes, given enough time. It is simply a trade off between protecting the traditional cultures and changing enough to survive in this world.

It is becoming quite apparent, even to the hard-line advocates of racial politics, that Malaysia does not have much of a choice. The economic outlook is bleak. With the dip in oil prices and various economic flops like the huge deficit of Malaysian Airlines, Malaysia is looking for ways to change its economy. The Iskandar Malaysia project is one way; but teaching the rakyat good English can be another way to bring in foreign cash without having banking on the negotiations with Singapore . Much of the controversy that surrounded this policy at its inception was not whether to implement the policy, but rather how to go about doing it. Most of the qualms raised by the Chinese community has been about the abrupt nature of the original policy. After all, forcing a student without prior knowledge in English to learn the Sciences and Mathematics in English in primary one is hardly sound pedagogy. The introduction of the original policy has not been smooth-sailing, with many students struggling to cope; but the teething problems eventually passed and it had gradually became a way of life as previously Chinese speaking parents started to pick up English so that they could help their children master the language. Now that the rakyat had been through those pains, the policy is changed yet again, meaning yet another few cohorts of students would have to go through the problems of transition.

In a nutshell, I think that this policy of teaching math and science in English should not be scraped. This concludes my argument.