After going through the memorandum that GMP had submitted to the Yang Di Pertuan Agong, I found that there are lots of half truths that I need to explain to the general public. It is very unfair to reveal half the truth and make deduction from them.
It is true that the number of pupils answering in totally English in the 2008 UPSR for Science is 31.1%. This doesn’t mean that the rest of the pupils answer in Malay. Only 16.5% of the candidates answers only in Malay. The balance 52.4% of the candidates answer in a mixed English and Malay language. Comparatively only 18.2% of the pupils answer in a mixed of Malay and English language in 2007. Similarly 53.4% of the pupils answer in a mixed of Malay and English language in the UPSR 2008, Mathematics paper comparing to 10.5% in 2007. This shows a significant increase in the competency of the pupils to answer the questions in English. This increase is notable due to the fact that the candidates for UPSR 2008 is the first cohort of pupils that fully followed the PPSMI programme from year 1 in 2003. Thus it would be grossly untrue to say that pupils cannot learn Mathematics and Science in English effectively.
Basically I can conclude that GMP has a hidden agenda which is not related to the effective learning of Mathematics and Science by Malaysian pupils or the status of the National Language but something that only Datuk Hassan and Samad will know or its like what I have mentioned in my earlier postings.
28/03/2009 at 4:49 pm
It is a fact English is the common language used worldwide. Some people were just blind to see and ignorance. It’s a language one should master to capitalise knowledge and information from many parts of the world. I am sad to see the issue of PPSMI is being politicised and taken as a racial concern even in UMNO General Assembly by few representatives even though Dato Hisham stress that by implementing PPSMI it doesn’t mean that we fully eliminate the usage of Bahasa Melayu. After all, Malaysia is still using Bahasa Melayu as our primary, main language. Malaysians need to move forward as knowledge society and be open-minded.
30/03/2009 at 3:50 am
It is fact that learning in pupils’ own language is not a barrier for them to success. The fact is, according to ex-Minister of Education, Tan Sri Musa, Malaysia is not active in translating new books into our own language, unlike Japan, German and Indonesia.
From the above fact we know that learning in pupils’ own language will not be a drawback for them to advance their study in other language.