Summarized version: After less than a decade of trying to teach math and science in English in Malaysia, the government has decided to revert to the national language and mother tongues instead. Given reasons include: failure of students to achieve results that are as good as the time of BM, the increasing gap between the achievements of urban students and rural students and the lack of proficient teachers to achieve the goals.
One and C, I get. But the gap answer? Really makes the blood boil.
Needless to say, I was and am utterly disappointed with the current Ministry of Education. And I am not alone in this.
At the point of this writing, 86% have said No to Tun Mahathir's Poll question: Do you support the government's decision to teach Math and Science in Bahasa Malaysia?
But apparently our Education Ministry is not in constant contact with the same 86%. It is being one with nature, going back to the people in rural areas, those who have no streamyx connection, cybercafes, or simply, a dependable electricity supply.
Apparently, the ministry is trying to play saviour to students who live in kampong areas, who couldn't keep up with the rest of the nation seemingly, solely, because sci and maths were taught in English.
Eh-yup, just because of that.
No, the lack of basic necessities like a steady supply of water and lights is not part of the cause.
It is also not the lack of a proper tarred road that leads to their school or a reliable mode of transport that will get them to school, and home before sundown.
It is also not the fact that most teachers are reluctant to go teach in rural areas.
It is also not the fact that kids in rural areas find no need for them to get themselves a proper education because unlike their urbanite peers, they need not be lawyers or doctors or engineers. They just need to be able to count, read, write, speak the national language, and they're set for life.
Nope, their results suck solely because science and maths were taught in English in the past 6 years. Wow, that really stopped them from really achieving great heights.
In Darwin's Survival of the Fittest paper, or maybe an anecdote attached to the concept, it was said that A herd is only as fast as its weakest link. Simply put, when you are in a group fighting against the elements, your achievements are bogged down by the weakest member in your group. In a herd of buffaloes, the weakest link is the young, or the old, or the sickly/injured, or the clueless. Fortunately, nature has its way to weed out these weak links.
They are called predators.
Humans and nature, well, they don't mix well.
I once heard that humans are the only animals that let misfits live among them. A horse with a broken leg will be shot in an instant. An unemployed man with a broken leg will get benefits from the government.
We.. nature... not to be mixed... nope. mm-mmm.
So when a policy is reversed with the given reason that the weakest bunch of students gets an average of fail in class, and not because of political reasons.. you know that we .. are... screwed.
Sigh, I need to earn more money to send Eva to an English medium school because our government has retracted the only advantage the damn system can give Malaysian kids to compete with the rest of the world.
We should make cabinet ministers send their kids to national schools. I'm quite sure they will revert back to English in 2013.
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