English uprooted, politicians gain, children suffer

Abasir: The title of the chapter in the study says it all: 'The National University of Singapore and the University of Malaya: Common Roots and Different Paths'.

The policy to move away from what put us on equal footing with Singapore was motivated by a mix of supremacist zeal and vindictiveness clothed in nationalist colours post-1969.

With meek and subdued coalition 'partners' in tow, our short-sighted ‘ketuanan' leaders railroaded a series of English language-cleansing initiatives that systematically and effectively uprooted English (and good teaching) from education and all aspects of public life ... with the ostensible purpose of enhancing national unity.

The result of that fanatical zealousness: hordes of unemployable, semi-literate graduates who need remedial education/finishing school treatment, a calamitous drop in rankings and a guaranteed second place in anything related to Singapore.

And national unity? The results are there for all to see.

Myop101: It all boils down to exposure. I studied in a Malay-medium school and turned out fine.

Sure, I have the privilege of getting tuition to assist my learning but having said that, no one forced me to take an interest in reading English books vis-a-vis spending time in library looking and reading books outside the curriculum during my school days.

In fact, I would walk for hours under the hot sun (especially Fridays) to visit public libraries outside my school in my pursuit of knowledge. Having a dictionary is certainly good if one chooses to be diligent and persevere through despite being stumbled by 'difficult words'.

I only blame it on our own students for expecting things to be presented to them on a silver platter when they could, out of their own initiative, appreciate the wider exposure they would gain should they opt to achieve a good command of English.

Perakian: The poor quality of Malaysian undergraduates is not due to poor English. It is due to the local sub-standard education system.

Anonymous_4041: My firm employed some local graduates, they are poor in English and dare not speak in front of others in the language. We have problems sending them to our Singapore's office for training. Now we have to ask our Singapore staff to come over to Kuala Lumpur to do the work.

Wfworker: The basic truth is many so-called graduates are absorbed into the teaching service because of political expediency. A majority of them are not fit to teach essentially for their lack of caliber and a good number of the teachers are wives and daughters of Umno members.

That was in the 70s, and today I believe the situation had gotten worse many folds. Yes, I have had served with a good number of Umno leaders when they were teachers - they spent most of their time doing party work and the students were left to their own device. This hasn't changed as one of my brother is still teaching.

Notwithstanding all our desire for our next and next generations, until the basic issue can be settled, the nation will continue to produce non-employable graduates created for political ‘shiok sendiri'.

Pemerhati: This news report does not make any mention of the important facts that differentiate the universities in Malaysia and Singapore, and which probably are the major reasons why the Singapore universities are rated much more highly than those in Malaysia.

The first major difference is that Singapore scours the world to get the best lecturers to teach in their universities whereas Malaysia gives preference to employing even the most mediocre Malay lecturers even when very much better lecturers of other ethnicities are readily available locally.

Secondly, Singapore only admits the best students to their universities whereas Malaysia admits a lot of mediocre students through the Matrikulasi system while denying admission to a lot of very much better quality students on racial grounds.

Hence in Malaysia, the GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) principle comes into play. Thus it is not surprising that most of the graduates are weak in English and the quality of their degrees are also suspect.

Jiminy Qrikert: Poor command of English is also a growing problem with the Mandarin-educated students and today; an increasing number of non-Chinese are opting to study in Mandarin.

The joke is China is fast-tracking the learning of English since they already have Mandarin as their first language. They know they need English more than the world needs Mandarin.

A good 60 percent of the world speaks English. A solid 1.4 billion speak Mandarin. But in Malaysia, we have leaders, including those from PKR and PAS, who champion Bahasa Malaysia because they need to appease the Malay electorate.

Some idiots even use the ‘300 million Malay-speaking people' as the argument to argue for Malay being made the Asean regional language.

How true the Malay proverb 'katak di bawah tempurung' (ignorant) and how true too, what my Malay friend once told me - Malays are like crabs; when one looks likely to succeed in the long climb out of the basket, the others will pull him back down.

Thank goodness we are not shackled by the champions of Mandarin and Tamil as well.

My Thor: For decades, the English language has been suppressed by overzealous protectors of the Malay language for political reasons.

Periodically, the campaign on 'Gunakan Bahasa Melayu' (Use Malay) is carried out to instil patriotism in the students by imposing a fear of the English language as a colonial language, out to colonise Malaysia again.

It is not surprising to find fresh graduates unable to express themselves in English as passing English is not a compulsory subject. So, what is the future of English?

Dood: The whole overemphasis of the Malays with this misguided idea of equating the language with patriotism (another misguided concept) is indeed a big reason why the education system is going down the dumps, and with the command of the English language suffering badly.

And who are the ones who will suffer most? The normal people. Do you think the Umno-BN elites will suffer? No.
While they make all of you suffer the consequences of their political manipulation of the education system, they themselves happily send their own children to be educated as elites, not under the same education system as the masses, and I would also add, not with Bahasa Malaysia being emphasised, but English. It's hypocrisy at its finest.

Let me give you just one anecdotal example of how terrible the result of our education system has produced - a consequence of the stupidity of this so-called ‘patriotism' and racial pride over language.

One day, while I was driving out of town in an unfamiliar semi-urban area, I stopped at a petrol station to fill up. I asked the station attendant - a young girl probably in her early 20s - for some directions in English.

To my surprise, she replied, "Kenapa nak cakap dalam bahasa orang asing?" without answering my question. Only when I asked again in BM did she give me the directions I sought, along with a self-satisfying "lebih baik cakap dalam bahasa kebangsaan".

I just gave her a smile as I wasn't interested in arguing with her, but I left the petrol station thinking to myself that I wouldn't be surprised if, with a mistaken ‘patriotic' attitude like that, she would live the rest of her life manning and cashiering that petrol station.