MCA, Gerakan and SUPP Ministers should not  UMNO Supreme Council to decide whether science and mathematics should be taught in English in Chinese primary schools and should ask for a sub-Cabinet task force to consult Dong Ziao Zhong and Chinese community on the issue  


Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang

(Petaling Jaya,  Sunday)Barisan Nasional politics have recently become the most strange and  bizarre in the 44-year political history since Independence, as illustrated  by the following three events: 

 

The Cabinet had not yet taken a formal decision to introduce the teaching of mathematics and science in English in primary schools, but the Education Minister, Tan Sri Musa Mohamad had announced the implementation of the UMNO Supreme Council decision the following day.  

The Cabinet seemed to have meekly accepted the authority of  the UMNO Supreme Council on policy matters on education and nation-building and that the UMNO Supreme Council is more powerful than the Cabinet and Parliament, as no Cabinet Minister has to date protested that it is improper and subversive of the doctrine of Cabinet government and the principles of parliamentary democracy for the Education Minister to act solely on the directive of the UMNO Supreme Council without any endorsement or approval by Cabinet or Parliament.  

What is even more shocking and unbelievable is that MCA, Gerakan and SUPP Ministers could allow the  UMNO Supreme Council, and not even UMNO Ministers, to decide whether science and mathematics should be taught in English in Chinese primary schools!  Have the MCA, Gerakan and SUPP central committees absolutely no role  in deciding any government policy at all?

MCA, Gerakan and SUPP Ministers should insist at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that they, and not   UMNO Supreme Council, should  decide whether science and mathematics should be taught in English in Chinese primary schools.  

While supporting the urgent need for a masterplan to quickly arrest the relentless decline of the standard of English in the past three decades, educationists and parents are legitimately concerned whether without major reforms in the infrastructure of the education system for the teaching and learning of English, the introduction of the  teaching of science and mathematics in English from Standard One would be a cure worse than the disease resulting in further lowering of the standards of Mathematics and Science without any significant increase in English fluency.   

It is time for greater diversity and flexibility in the national education system of a plural society like Malaysia, and the proposal for the teaching of mathematics and science in English should be treated differently for national primary schools and Chinese primary schools.  

MCA, Gerakan and SUPP Ministers should support the DAP call on the Education Ministry to make public all the studies which the Education Ministry had carried out which positively demonstrated that the immediate introduction of the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English from Standard One is the best and most effective method to arrest the decline of the English standard   in the schools in national primary schools.  

The Education Ministry should also disclose whether separate studies have been made on whether the introduction of the teaching of mathematics and science in English in the Chinese primary schools will lead to the all-round improvement in the standards of all three subjects of mathematics, science and English and not  the reverse.

The least the MCA, Gerakan and SUPP Ministers should ask the Cabinet to agree on Wednesday is to treat the problem of the raising of English in Chinese primary schools separately from that of the national primary schools, in view of the fact that three languages will be involved in Chinese primary schools as compared to two languages in the national primary schools.

The Cabinet should set up a sub-Cabinet task force to consult with Dong Ziao Zhong, Chinese educationists, parents and the Chinese community on how best to urgently raise the standard of English in the Chinese primary schools and whether the teaching of mathematics and science   in English should be introduced for Chinese primary schools from Standard One next year.

(19/5/2002)


*Lim Kit Siang - DAP National Chairman