Math and Science: The case for BM (2)
Is it so incomprehensible to urbanites that the majority of rural children don’t speak English at home? That the people around them don’t speak English? That even their older brothers and sisters who are college-age speak little or poor English?
Helen Ang, Centre for Policy Initiatives
We have completed one cycle of PPSMI. In 2008, the pioneer batch that was taught Math and Science entirely in English finished their Year Six.
Yet last year, only 31.1% of Year Six pupils elected to answer the UPSR Science paper fully in English, while 68.9% opted to use Malay, or vernacular (Chinese/Tamil) or a combination of three languages (English-Malay-vernacular). Good grief! We’ve formally brought the Malaysian rojak culture into the classroom.
An unintended consequence of PPSMI is that of turning the UPSR haywire – its rojak language feature unheard of anywhere else in the world. A parallel would be, say, a 12-year-old in England submitting his Science answer script in a jumble of English-French-Urdu.
Close to 70 percent of Malaysian Year Sixers were not confident enough to sit the exam in English. In absolute numbers, 352,641 pupils.
Taiwan and Korea topped the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)* in 2007. Taiwanese and Korean children don’t learn Math and Science in English.
Hong Kong children taught in spoken-Cantonese and written-Chinese also ace Math and Science. On the other hand, Filipinos are fine in English. Do you ever hear that the Philippines is tops in Math and Science?
Two countries usually considered technological powerhouses are Germany and Japan. Imagine if German and Japanese children were to be taught Math and Science in English in order to improve their English as well as performance in both subjects.
I should hope that a Japanese Education Minister treating his country to such flawed reasoning would have the decency to commit harakiri.
