Shocking

Quote from The Malaysian Insider:


Government scraps teaching of maths and science in English

By Adib Zalkapli

PUTRAJAYA, July 8 — The government today decided to end the policy of teaching mathematics and science in English or PPSMI in both primary and secondary schools effective from 2012.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, in an announcement today, said the two subjects will be taught in Bahasa Melayu in national schools and Tamil and Chinese for vernacular schools.

The Education Minister added that the changes would not affect Form Six and matriculation programmes.

"The government made the decision after studying closely research on PPSMI that shows that PPSMI could not be implemented as expected," Muhyiddin told a special press conference here.
He said the decision was fair and made carefully after witnessing the implementation in the first six years after its introduction.

He also denied that the decision to scrap the policy was politically motivated.

"This decision is not political, we made the decision not for political mileage. What is Manek Urai compared to the future of our children," said Muhyiddin.

He however denied that the PPSMI policy had failed.

"I wouldn't say it was a complete failure, but it did not achieve what it was supposed to achieve," he said.

Introduced in 2003, the policy has been heavily criticised by Chinese educationists and Malay-language activists, but a recent survey by the independent Merdeka Center showed that 58 per cent of 1,060 voters interviewed supported the policy.

Muhyiddin had admitted in Parliament last month that students had not shown significant improvement in the two subjects over the past six years.

But he said today the intention of the policy, which is to improve English language proficiency among Malaysian students, will continue to be upheld.

The measures to be introduced include recruiting some 14,000 new English language teachers. Currently there are more than 30,000 English teachers nationwide.

Muhyiddin also said the lesson duration for English language would also be doubled for lower primary students to 120 minutes a week, while for upper primary it would be increased from 90 minutes to 120 minutes a week.

For secondary students, the duration will be increased from 200 minutes to 280 minutes a week.

I am shocked to hear this news.. REALLY SHOCKING!!

Their decision will surely affect our children as they will be the future leaders of the nation

We know that mastering English is important but I still don't understand why some quarters wanted it to be abolished. Is it so hard for them to learn English or are the terms in English are so difficult until they can't even understand a simple term?

If they really abolish PPSMI, I bet unemployment among Malaysian will increase.. Due to lack of proficiency in English, they will not be employed.. Surely..

Now we are in the world that is full of challenges and obstacles. Without learning English, how are we going to survive in this world? How are we going to further our studies in university level, masters level, and PhD level without a proficiency in English? Are we going to learn our mother tongue language during our university level? Obviously not!!

I'm indeed dissapointed with the decision.. I thought that there will find a better solution for this problem and in the end they made an unwise decision..

I think I should stop ranting here. Tata and God bless. :)