When education becomes a political tool
We have politicians who think that the dumbing down of the education syllabus to achieve ‘politically expedient’ examination results is an education policy.
CT Ali, FMT
We may not know each other’s name. We care not what religion the other practised. We all spoke Malay because it is the language we all understood. Language integrates!
The Malay language made us one. The Malay language allowed us to understand each other. The Malay language was ours to use as and when it was necessary for us to communicate across the racial divide.
No need for 1Malaysia lah!
Any Malay who could speak Mandarin or Tamil got our respect and the same goes for a Chinese being able to speak Tamil and an Indian being able to speak Mandarin. But everybody had to know enough Malay to get by or else they would be looked upon as not playing ball with the others.
Is this not the Malaysia that we old timers remember?
What we needed to learn was English. Damm! We went to school to learn English. That was a chore because it was a foreign language for all of us – a language you need to master for education. But master it we did.
And so Malay was the language for integration and the English language became our language for education, administration, government and business.
And then came May 13, the NEP, Ketuanan Melayu and all the attending ‘must do’ that the government said was needed (so said Umno) to integrate the people into 1Malaysia demi kepentingan negara!
Malay became our official national language.
Fast forward to 2013. The Malay language is still the language of integration minus the politically incorrect nuances and colloquialism that has allowed all the races in Malaysia to embrace it as their own.
But the transition of the Malay language from the language of integration to one of administration, government and education has been, at best inadequate and at worst, it has been the reason for the rapid decline of our proficiency in the English language.
This in spite of what our government said in 1956: “No secondary school pupil shall be at a disadvantage in the matter either of employment or of higher education in Malaya or overseas as long as it is necessary to use the English language for these purposes” (Razak Report, 1956:1 2).
The language question perplexes us. Our multi ethnicity gives vibrancy to our culture. The Malay language defines us. It is our most obvious attribute.
Do they not speak Thai in Thailand, Mexican in Mexico? For our integration, our cohesion and our togetherness as a Nation, Malay is indispensable and we are all agreed on that in fact and in practice.
But the English language is a language of relevance. It is a universal language that is understood by scholars and educated people everywhere.
Yet our mastery of the English language far from being maintained at the standards it has achieved in the past, has now declined at an alarming rate over the years – and have done so to our disadvantage!
The preferred lingua franca
Today pride in our national language is worthless if our children are not sufficiently proficient in the English language to enable them to be educated to the best of their ability globally and our people are unable to use English as a means of communication and do business on the world stage.
When did the English language become a liability to Malaysians? Is not English a politically neutral language to all of us?
Today the Malay language dominates on paper whereas the English language dominates in fact and all attempts to impose the Malay language on all Malaysians have succeeded in law but not in fact.
Just as the attempt by the Indian government to replace the English language with Hindi had failed because of vehement opposition by non-Hindi-speaking groups.
No such dissent is allowed/possible in Malaysia for now because this BN government does not allow dissent.
I would venture a guess that if a referendum was done today on the question of what would be the preferred lingua franca – the preference for English would dominate.
Umno does not see the need to change its own name into a suitable bahasa equivalent. Like they have done in religion, this Umno-led Barisan Nasional government sees a political advantage in championing the use of Malay as the national language but not in the upholding of its principles to make Malay the national language in the manner Umno has decreed it to be so.
We have today jaguh kampung students who have consistently score A’s through their Malay medium education but are unable to compete globally against others because our Education Ministry has failed to equip these students with adequate skills to master the English language at the level expected of them when they are sent overseas by the same government to further their education.
While our student labour under this unnecessary burden, our people are disadvantaged by this government’s preoccupation of using language as a political tool.
A political tool with questionable short term advantages and possibly irrepairable long term harm to the very fabrics that hold our society together.
Over 50 years of irresponsible tinkering with the education of our young by the Education Ministry to embellish superficial gains in examinations results and meet politically selfish goals has certainly now consigned our students to the unenviable tasks of becoming increasingly isolated and unable to compete on a level playing field with other students globally.
This, together with the decline in the use of and proficiency in the English language by Malaysians, augers ill for the future of our ability to acquire information, education and knowledge in a world where all that has to be done through the English language.
