It's all about the freaking Mentality.

It’s saddening, says Mahathir – The Star

It is Bahasa again but more emphasis will be placed on learning English – The Star

Policy reversed but English hours extended – The Star

Knowing the fact that Malaysian Government is reverting Science and Mathematic from English to Malay once again me. I was educated in Chinese for Science and Mathematic during primary school, Malay in secondary school and English during college and university. To be frank I don’t have serious issue in handling the transaction of languages and I believe most of my peers doesn’t have much problem doing so. No doubt it was quite frustrating at the beginning of each transaction but in terms of knowledge transfer it’s not a big deal at all. Unlike what was written in the press, some claim that it will jeopardize the future of our young one. What does this statement mean? Is this imply that those who were taught in Malay for these subjects particularly students who graduated from the 70s to 2004 either not success in their career or can’t get a job? If so our government must be lying for our unemployment rate for the pass 30 years. :)

It isn’t the matter of languages in learning Science and Mathematic, at the end of the day what education tried to achieve is knowledge transfer from generation to generation. Language is always just a medium to pass down our knowledge ever since it was inverted by our ancestors. No doubt multiple transactions of languages might lead students into frustration and eventually scraping of their interest on these subjects but it will never compromise their future or our country’s developments. Let’s an example in Japan science and mathematic are always taught in their own language but their technologies isn’t inferior compare to the western countries. The same goes to Russia, Finland, and Germany etc. So logically the statement is false. Of course there are some differences in terms cultural background and social behavior between these country and us. But what I would like to emphasis here our country development and advancement of civilization doesn’t lies on the language of learning Science and Mathematic. I would say it’s the scholar it’s self. It’s all about our mentally, motivation and dreams. The person we would like to be in the future.

Personally I practice Engineering for my degree, sometimes I can understand what Dr. M insist in restoring English language as a medium of teaching Science and Mathematic. I believe most science students would agree with me. But what our country currently looking at is the wrong issue. It’s not about the language we need to revise it’s about the whole education system we need to change. Just look at our students today, what are their goals of learning? The answers are obvious:

To get a good grade in exam.

To get a first class honour for my degree.

To get straight A in government exam.

To get first place in my school or class.

To get a good job in future.

To… blah blah blah blah

And the list continues, I would say these are the answers you would get from the majority. Hardly you would find students saying that:

To make the world a better place to stay.

To save lifes.

To apply my expertise in helping others.

To invent a technology that will revolutionize our world.

Why? Why is this so? Why most students are so short sighted? Why they only focus on things that wouldn’t make an impact to our world? Why?

It’s all because the social behavior of Malaysian. Our young one had be intoxicated with the concept of learning to score well not learning to fulfill the hunger of knowledge. This is why? There is no need to invert or restore the medium of teaching science and mathematic. The government needs to change the so call Malaysian mindset. To do that we need to re-organize our country’s education system change the our system change the Malaysian mindset. (To be continued on this topic)

Up Next:

Why Malaysian can write well but bad in listening and speaking? My personal experience.