S and M in BM…?!
It is such a sad news to read on when I first browse thestar.com.my
Here is the news regarding to the dicision of which language to use to teach Science and Maths.
I personally felt great when initially the government have the thought to make teaching of Science and Maths in English. This will not only make life easier when coming to further study, but also will improve the standard of students studying Science and Maths. A lot of terms and names are actually translated when we are studying then using BM. I am not saying that the translation is no good, but it will be a waste of energy, time, and resources when it comes to translating them from English to BM.
It might be hard, to those whom are weak in English, but they should know that when they enter the high school life, college and universities, English becoming an important language, not only to communicate but also to help and enable them to study subjects or programme easier. I, myself being educated in a vernicular school, studied Science and Maths in BM, felt that I had had to restudy everything when I am in the univeristy. Why? All those been studied during high school were in BM, and I find it very hard to understand at first, when all the teachings in University are in English. Yes, we do have MUET. But that is only the language paper, not the subject. Surprisingly, I had my own lecturer at my ex-university saying something like “who will read scientific journal articles in BM? those papers are useless unless they are translated into English!” I am amased. These words uttered by a Malay lecturer whom himself find it very stupid for the authorities to ask the lecturer to teach in BM while lecturer notes and terms are all in English. How stupid it is just to make certain group of people an easy life, but will cause their life even harder in the future.
During my public speaking subject and also my english for occupational purposes (eop), not many are willing to take up these 2 subjects. They find it very hard to score and very hard to study. But is it very hard? Is it important just to score it and never did understand the subjects and uilise them? I am grateful that I have the courages to take up EOP during final year, as this subject really an eye-opener for me. I find it even easier for me to study the rest of the subjects taught in the university by using English, as I understand and utilise the usage of English. I have no difficulties converse in it, and indeed I am still facing difficulties to present and to write up, but I am copping up.
I am not to say that English is superior to other languages, but the authorities should have know, how important it is to walk in the right path. Education system in a country is very important to shape up the youngs and the youngs will eventually become the leader of the country in the future. Imagine that the youngs that we are producing, cannot even understand science and maths in English. I would say, shame to our authorities, shame to our country, shame to our nation.
Do we really want to stand up tall in the eyes of the world? Do we really want to move forward to have a better future? Do we really want the best for the nation’s sake? If yes, why the authorities cannot see the importance of English. Mother languages can still be preserved, even though we are not teaching subjects using the mother language. We shall not limit the thought of because of the sake of preserving the mother language, we forgot the importance using English.
I believe, teaching Science and Maths in English is still the best way to lead the nation from a developing country to a developed country. The stubbornness of fighting to preserve BM in this case, will only make the education system in Malaysia not recognised, and will make a down turn to cast away all the foreign students to study in Malaysia. In this situation, we are actually draw-backing us, not making us forward due to the corrupted education system in Malaysia.
