MCA wants English for secondary school
(Bernama) – Tommorrow, the MCA will propose to the Cabinet to maintain teaching science and mathematics in English at secondary school-level, said party president Ong Tee Keat.
He said the party needed to be mindful of the students in science or pure science streaming in Forms 4 and 5.
"As such, we should maintain using English as a medium of instruction in science and mathematics in secondary school-level because of the streaming," he told reporters after chairing the pre-Cabinet meeting for MCA ministers and deputy ministers here Tuesday.
Ong also suggested that mathematics and science should be taught bi-lingual (Bahasa Melayu and English), if needed in Form 1 to 3, because the students might face problems in switching languages after they moved to Form 4.
Last Wednesday, the government had annouced that the teaching and learning of science and mathematics in national schools would be reverted to the national language, effective 2012.
Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said the teaching and learning of the two subjects in Chinese and Tamil national-type schools would be carried out in their respective mother tongue.
Ong said he would also suggest to the Cabinet to increase the time alloted for teaching the English subject in Chinese national-type primary schools (SJKC), by using the time slot previously used to teach science and mathematics in English.
"We note that the time alloted to teach the English subject in SJKC is far less than the national school (SK). Time allotment for teaching the subject in SK is 330 minutes for Standard 1 to 3 per week, while only 120 minutes are alloted for SJKC," he said.
Ong said the party wanted the time alloted to teach English to be increased to at least 180 minutes a week because it was worried of the English proficiency of SJKC students.
"All students in SJKC are required to learn three languages, that is Bahasa Melayu, English and Mandarin as compared to SK, so the time slot for teaching English is shorter than SK," he said.
