Adios La Salle Brothers

It's a strange feeling for an Old Free to be writing about another rival school.

It was reported that the last La Salle brother in Malaysia, the Headmaster of St' Xavier Institution has retired, and thus, marked the end of an illustrated era of La Salle influence in Malaysian education system. These La Salle brothers have contributed remarkably to the development of education in the country. Many Malaysians owe it to them for the dedicated education and teaching that these La Salle brothers have passionately given their life for. Without doubt, these La Salle schools have produced many remarkable Malaysians, and proud to say, my father is a product of the La Salle school.

To be fair, where credit is due, it should be given. The La Salle brothers had indeed contributed incredibly to the education of Malaysia and their contribution ought to be recorded as an integral part of the nation's historical account about education.

Prediction, estimation or pure random "guesstimate"?

The Deputy Minister of Education was reported by the media saying that 80% of Malaysians are in favour of making English as a make-pass subject in SPM. In view that this policy has vital implication to the education, the economy and even the Malaysian society, how could a politician made such a irresponsible "guesstimate".

How could "prediction" be made based on emails and text messages received? "Prediction" or "estimation" such as these are misleading and the effect is certainly detrimental, purely without statistical principles to be called an estimation. Frankly, such prediction looks more like a pure random "guesstimate", or rather, like the old Chinese supersitious tradition of interpreting their dreams and turned them into numbers to buy lottery.

However, to have such a high-profile person in the Ministry of Education to make such an un-intellectual guess, I wonder, what is the advantage of making English as a must-pass subject?

From the standpoint of the society, does it make any good to have less people with a SPM certificate? Failing the English language subject in SPM, in many ways, is already a bad result to have. By making English as a must-pass subject, it will only make those who are already bad to look even worse. To deprive them of a SPM certificate because of the English language, to many weak students, this is practically killing the "dying lifeline" for them to pursue further education and training. What's the point?

Frankly, I do not see much advantages of making English as a must-pass subject, both from society and educational viewpoints. Perhaps, as a politician, the Minister or Deputy Minister has other agendas for Malaysian education system.

P/S: Just a point to ponder, what is the Deputy Minister's viewpoint of teaching Science and Mathematics in English?

English in SPM

It came a little surprising that the Minister of Education did not know that English is not a "must-pass" subject in SPM (O-levels). I wonder, what about his predecessors? Do they actually know anything about the Malaysian education system? Anyway, I am not interested to question politician's knowledge about education. What I am more interested is the Minister's comments and initiatives.

I wish to point out that I have used the term "must-pass" instead of compulsory. This is simply because English language is already a compulsory subject in SPM examination, whereby all students must sit for this paper. What the Minister does not know, is that in order for students to be considered to have acquired the SPM (O-levels) certificate, Malay Language is a "must-pass" subject and English is not. Therefore, what has been reported in the media about suggestion to turn English into compulsory subject should in fact be reported as making it a "must-pass" subject.

I applaud more initiatives to improve the standard of English language in Malaysia. As a product of the Malaysian education system, the level of my English language proficiency, particularly in writing, has always been a concern. I have tried to improve but, as a result of poor understanding to the basic foundation of the language, improvement has been slow and painful (I do not blame any of my English teachers. In fact, they have taught me more than I could have learnt). Even until now, I am still attending English writing courses. Therefore, I have personally felt the inadequacy of English proficiency, hence I understood the importance that more initiatives to improve the level of proficiency among students is much needed.

However, I view the call for making English a "must-pass" with much skepticism. In fact, I do not agree with having any "must-pass" subjects in examination. The idea of having "must-pass" in examinations heavily contradict the purpose of examination. Examination is an opportunity for students to gauge their understanding and knowledge. By placing a "must-pass" criteria for one or two subjects, it will shift the focus from measuring the level of mastery into striving for A's.

Moreover, if a student scores A's in mathematics and science (the essential basics to be a scientist) but failed the "must-pass" subject, does this means that the student has failed the entire examination, and hence, all doors to further education will be closed? What is important with examinations, such as SPM, is to provide more flexibility for students to gauge their strengths and weakness, as well as a form of measure of their knowledge and ability.

If improving English language is prime concern, then Malaysia needs to have more properly-trained English teachers, who are committed and passionate to help students learn the English language. For the last three to four decades, the Malaysian education system has "neglected" the importance of the English language, and hence, several generations of truly-competent English teachers have been lost. Most of the teachers within the system were students trained in the era where Malay language is the utmost important language and the importance placed upon English has been minimal. Therefore, efforts need to once again begin from the basics, which means beginning at teachers' training and primary schools.

As way forward, much drastic yet creative initiatives are needed to revamp and improve English proficiency, but certainly, introducing English as a "must-pass" subject in SPM is not going to solve the problem. In fact, there is a high possibility that it might further deteriorate the English proficiency of Malaysian students.