Published July 9, 2009

KL ending teaching of maths, science in English

Opposition parties back move to revert to using Bahasa Malaysia from 2012

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(PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia) Malaysia is to abandon teaching maths and science in English, saying that far too many children from poor rural areas were being failed by the programme.

The decision to start phasing out English medium teaching from 2012 has been backed by the government and Malaysia's main opposition parties, despite concerns that using the national language, Bahasa Malaysia, will undermine competitiveness.

Malaysia has said recently that it wants to attract more high-value investment in areas such as banking and finance, industries that are global and typically demand good English.

Instead of teaching maths and science in English, a policy started in 2003, the government will double the time spent on English lessons for primary children and increase that for secondary school children by half.

It said that it would hire an additional 14,000 teachers to teach English as a language.

'I would not say it (English language instruction) was a complete failure, but it did not achieve what it was supposed to achieve,' Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin told a news conference yesterday.

English was once the medium of instruction in most schools in Malaysia, a former British colony. Nationalist leaders switched to Malay less than two decades after independence in 1957.

In 2003, realising that poor English skills hurt graduates competing for work against people from other countries, especially neighbouring Singapore, ex-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad launched a programme to resume teaching maths and science in English. Nearly every other subject is still taught in Malay.

A recent report from Morgan Stanley showed that Malaysia's tertiary enrolment and completion ratios were six and seven percentage points behind the average countries with a similar level of income per capita.

That leaves it at a disadvantage as it seeks to tap into foreign investment which is increasingly using countries such as China and Vietnam which have larger domestic markets and bigger reservoirs of cheap labour.

Critics said that the change to use Bahasa Malaysia would not achieve the desired effect of enfranchising the rural poor or of boosting English language skills, and said that the move was largely political, aimed at appeasing the Malay majority.

'What has not occurred to the authorities is that the education system requires very competent teachers,' said Khoo Kay Kim, emeritus professor at the University of Malaya's history department, adding that politicians were driving the change due to their personal agenda.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was educated in an English-medium school in Kuala Lumpur and later in a private school in England, while opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, was educated at the elite English-speaking Malay College.

Prof Khoo also warned that the move could increase divisions along racial lines in this country of 27 million people where 55 per cent are ethnic Malays and there are sizeable ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities. -- Reuters, AP