Language Policy and Planning

Why do our former Prime Minister Tun. Dr Mahathir insists of changing the medium of instruction from Bahasa Malaysia to English in the teaching of Science and Mathematics? There are basically two reasons: first is because we are in the K-Economy period where knowledge is seen as crucial for the nation to be able to compete world wide. Knowledge is seen as important in the field of Science and Technology, therefore, english is the only language for our nation to gain knowledge. Secondly, we do not have sufficient intellectuals to traslate the books available from english to Bahasa Malaysia since we are already very far behind.

The tremendous change of this language policy is because Tun. Dr. Mahathir realise the needs for the nation to move forward. However, i found that there are still a number of people in Malaysia who resists against the use of english in education. Apart from the struggle of national identity, i think there are still many other reasons for peopple to resists the use of English. As Hadi mentioned in the class last week, people resists the use of englsih is because they do not want to accept the language of "mat salleh" since they were once colonized by colonial power and they do not want to use the language of those colonizer. Do you think there are other reasons? Maybe we can share here...

Please think of this..

I am currently teaching tutition in a tuition center. My students are all primary students, and the medium of instruction is in Mandarin for all subjects. Half a year ago, parents of my students and even the teachers required me to sign a letter to the minister of education and the purpose of the letter is to resist against the use of english. Initially i was glad that our former prime minister changed the policy and i thought the nation, especially the Chinese and Indians will be happy and willing to change since they are not as nationalism as the Malays are. However, things doesn't go as what i thought it should be. So, i found it weird and i actually had a small chat with the parents. Surprisingly, the reasons they resist against englsih is not because of self-identity but they do not want english to be used as medium of instruction in classes and examination because they knew their kids are poor in English and if english is being used, their children will not be able to get an "A" and consequently, the kids are not able to enter the "genius class". SEE, HOW MUCH EXAMINATION-ORIENTED THE MALAYSIANS ARE!

Parents and teachers and even the students are aware of the role of English but yet they do not want to accept the fact. My questions here are:

1. Since English is so important , why there are still a number of people, especially the parents and educators, who resists against English? Do they see the future of English for their children?

2. Why is Malaysian so examination-oriented? Not only the primary and secondary schools, but i can see it even in universities students ways of acquiring knowledge.

3. Who should be blame on this? The government? The parents? or students themselves?

4. What actions should be taken in order to overcome this? (What should we do to make the nations accept English?)

Your opinions will be much appreciated...hehe ^^... thanks