Sunday, April 03, 2005

Language and Education have always being a sensitive issue in this country...Now the subject of Chinese School crop up again..It seem that the Chinese community want more Chinese Language school in the ninth Malaysian Plan [Malaysia five years development Plan]...As far as I am concern it is a no issue, for I believe that any race that makes the Malaysian society can continue to have as many of their language school as possible, for school in whatever languages are asset to the country...Moreover the medium of instruction of Chinese School is the Mandarin Chinese language...A world language, not just a communicative language but a language of knowledge as well...Unlike the Malay language which is a rather new language, is a communicative language for all Malaysian, but as far as knowledge is concern it is just as yet to be one...It is now the National Language of Malaysia and medium of instruction in all national school. In recent years because of the poor command of English and difficult to acquire knowledge from most books that are written in English...English is being reintroduce in all national schools in the teaching of Science and mathematic and the result of the final year examination this year look promising and the government is going to make the teaching of English in Science and mathematic as a permanent feature in all national school by two zero zero eight.....I hope the political leader would not turn this demand into an issue that would divide the society but instead look at this language issue as something that is going to stay forever in a multiracial country like Malaysia....Since Mandarin is an important language, why not introduce this language in the national school, by doing so all Malaysian would be able to speak another world language and making the Malay students speak a Chinese Language as well...Today a Chinese students could speak Malay, Chinese and probably English but most Malay students could only speak the Malay language and a little of English but none could speak Mandarin or any of the other Chinese dialect, so in a way it is the Malay that is loosing in the language and Education game....If at all there are Malay that could speak English or Mandarin, the numbers are indeed negligible...So I hope the political leaders could open up their mind and look forward and make the right decision for the sake of the future of Malaysia.....Remember for Malaysian to succeed in globalization, additional languages are assets that would prove valuable in international commerce and trade....So Let us open up our mind and be realistic about the world we live in....

No comments: