Let a root remains as a root. By: Fikrah Imayu Imayu05@gmail.

com A good policy comes from the good will of a politics of virtue; A politics with the intention in making the progress of the nations as a whole without neglecting the character or identity of Malaysia. The PPSMI however, since the introduction in year 2003, serve very suspicious steps of solving a problem by creating even more other problems. Referring to the circular Ikhtisas (SPI) 11/2002, the policy of PPSMI was formulated based on the fact that Science and Mathematics is a very dynamic field of knowledge with new discoveries and most of the related information are in English. The ultimate objective of this policy is to enable students to access relevant information through various media so that they are able to master the knowledge of science and mathematics and more competitive at international level as well as producing a sound generation with the use of English. Read thoroughly, and well see a lot of assumptions were made out of it and in the end; it falls to fallacy premise or wrong hypothesis. This will ends out with confusion in every levels; technically and philosophically. For records, every curriculum needs to be reviewed every complete-circle of curriculum life, which normally takes about 10 years. In another sense, implementing wrong hypothesis will lose the country a generation of students, consisting more than 10 million lives. The questions that can be asked by having all the assumptions made in the first steps are stated below: Is it really Mathematics is a very dynamic field of knowledge with many new discoveries? Is it really, to become competitive in international level, we must mastery the science and mathematics? To access any media such as internet, English-language sources are so vast. Then, dont we have to understand and mastering English-language to access all kinds of information not limited to science and mathematics? By learning science and mathematics in English, can we improve the English proficiency? Is it really our students having problems in accessing information in media such as internet as they learn science and mathematics in Bahasa Malaysia for the past 30 years (1970 2002)?

The questions can be more! But I would like to elaborate only on these questions in this article, since this is the foundation towards the implementation of the PPSMI as stated in the circular above. In the end, I will give my opinions on the real issues of Malaysian students that I think every party would agree on it. By understanding the root problems, then we can address solutions; be very careful by not creating other problems. Root is policy, and policy must be equal, fair and shows a virtue. Implementation however serves technical matters. Technical issues can be differs from one school to another, depending on the infrastructure available, as long it align with the same policy. This is the basic of good governance. My concerns now, is that some people are still arguing to uphold the PPSMI policy by giving lame excuses with perceptions, assumptions and technical matters, without understanding the main issues and without even giving proper fact and figures. Ironically, their statements get the most intentions in

the main-stream media again-and-again, as if they are having majority support from the ground such as parents and whole community. Let me give out my points as enlightenment for these people by answering the questions above one by one. The main premise to say that mathematics is a dynamic field of knowledge is not true at all. Malaysian Mathematics syllabus concerns with learning area of Numbers, Shape and Space, and Relationships. These areas are interrelated to each other. These areas have been taught in the Malaysian curriculum and are more-or-less is similar to other countries all over the world. In other perspective, what we taught here in the year 2011 in Malaysia is similar with what we taught in the last 30 years. To make you understand more, the Pythagoras theorem is the same theorem since the last he wrote it in 500BC. The most important aspect of learning mathematics is to grab the concept of the lesson, by having to understand and to articulate the idea of mathematics to be applied in daily life. This basic concepts need to be transferred by the good-will of mathematical processes such as reasoning, making connections and relations, communications and solving problems. Does High School level Mathematics have new concepts and discoveries? No! We are talking the very same concept of Mathematics since ancient Greek and Renaissance. As the students understand the basic concept in this level, they can go to any college to further their studies. The key word here is instructional process, not the medium of instruction. Unless if the discussion is on technology. Indeed, technology is moving fast for change, yet we are using the same mathematical principles. After graduating from schools and college, every parent is hoping that their children to be marketable in career life. Theres no doubt on that. To be competitive in the world out there, the important aspects which enhance the quality of one candidate to another is the ability to speak their ideas clearly, transfer the ideas into actions, and make right decisions and the ability to solve problems. All this soft skills are important and applicable to all disciplines of knowledge, which are not exclusive only for mathematics and sciences field. This is the vital points to understand the root of the problems. If we claim our education product fail to have all these qualities, then, we need to address the problems in a proper channel. Besides, according to Fortune Magazine, top 10 world largest employers are not all about mathematics and science. 2/10 top companies are from oil and gas industries, 5/10 are from services industries, 1/10 is from technology industries, and another 1/10 is from banking industries. From the data, it obviously stated that 50 percent of worlds largest employers are more related to services, rather than mathematics, and science related industries. Another interesting fact is that Japan and China ranks second and third place in top 3 in worlds global companies after US, which is logically, we should learn Japanese and Chinese instead of English if to be employed internationally! What is important is that our children able to grasp all possible knowledge available so they can become functional in all sectors of humanity. Industries are only small part of todays need just because were living in a capitalist world. An education shouldnt aim to produce mainly an industries-labour work force. Prof. Naquib Al-Attas manifested that an educated man is a good man, and by good he means a man that possesses adab (insan adabi) in its full inclusive sense. It can be defined as: "the one who is sincerely conscious of his responsibilities towards the true God; who understands and fulfills his obligations to himself and others in his society with justice, and who constantly strives to improve every aspect of himself towards perfection as a man of adab." Adab by definition is recognition and acknowledgement of the reality that knowledge and being are ordered hierarchically according to their various grades and degrees of rank, and of ones proper

place in relation to that reality and to ones physical, intellectual and spiritual capacities and potentials. Theres no single word mentioning about mathematics and sciences! This basic principle of education is vital to be understood so that we are discussing the right subject. My point is that, every children need to learn and mastering all aspect of education, and not just by limiting the key to success purely on mathematics and sciences. Clearly, when all subjects area is important, rationally, it is making more sense to think of a policy, to ensure English language to be proficient and be used to access all books and multi-media resources. Therefore, theres no sense of imposing a policy to be proficient in English language by learning science and mathematics in English. Theres no empirical studies made anywhere on earth shows that we can improve the English proficiency by learning science and mathematics in English! Still, we can argue that science and mathematics can provide context in practicing English communication skills. In a sense, I would agree on this argument. In Malaysia, research conducted by Ministry Of Education exposed that less than 5% of total number of classes in 7,495 primary schools, and about 5 - 7% of the total number of classes in 2,191 schools at secondary levels is using 100% English in their classroom! While the rest, which is more than 90% either using dual language or 100% mother tongue language. The study also revealed that students found it hard to understand Mathematics and Sciences subject in the English language. Obviously, the idea for the students to communicate in English while learning those two subjects ends up with total failure. For records, this is the 9th years of the implementation of the policy! Imagine the impact or the damage that has been occurred. Statistically, the policy involves more than 10 million learners since 2003! Another studies conducted by UPSI in 2008 involving 3,903 year 5 pupils in their fifth year of PPSMI regarding English language competencies compared to parallel performance in Science reveals that 75% do not or barely comprehend learning science in English. Performance in Science and English also was poor. But, when compared to Primary School Assessment Test (UPSR) result for that year, showed increment of 4.4% of those who gets As for English. However, results for Science and Mathematics drop 0.7% - 2.2% compared with the average over the last five years. To make it easier to understand, this methodology of learning doesnt really work well to improve their English proficiency, yet making them struggling more to learn science and mathematics. The data is statistically not significant to say the English medium gives impact to achievement in Science, mathematics and also English. In the age of internet, facebook, twitter, youtube, google, yahoo etc. become the major edge of peoples source of information, and get their knowledge within at point of finger tips. These terms are closer to the young generations. According to Youth Council of Malaysia, by definition, youth is a people who are below 40 years old. Therefore, if you were born in 1970s, you are still considered as youth; the year 1970 is very significant since this is the year where implementation of curriculum is all in Bahasa Malaysia, except English, Arabic, and other ethnic language. Internet era in Asia however started in the mid 1980s and early 1990s. In these years, computers and internet are still considered as luxury for the most of Malaysians. The price is considerably affordable within this decade, and most every house got one computer, then, the expansion of internet usage become more significant and influencing our daily life. Generally, even the students of Malay medium educations are able to use internet easily even most of the internet content is in English. It never raised a problem for these generations as they can and able to explore almost anything in the internet without ever learning science and mathematics in English. You can ask any school students with kampung or sub-urban background that has computer and internet

in their home to use Google to find information! And of course, if they proficient in English, it will be much faster and easier to use this technology. I need to stress the point, which is that it doesnt concerns at all with sciences and mathematics as subject matter to surf the internet. They just have to be good in English and they can surf anything! In Malaysia, we must understand that English Language is our second language, after Bahasa Malaysia. It means, we need to learn English and master the English language for our benefit especially in globalization world. But, second comes after first. The first language to be upheld is Bahasa Malaysia. Upheld means making Bahasa Malaysia the language of knowledge, unities, governance, so on and so forth. It takes courage and efforts to do that, unless were so lazy to work on it and taking a short-cut instead. Bahasa Malaysia has just been instituted with the development of Language and Literature Councils (DBP) in 1970s. How can we compare the 40 years age of institutions work with well establish civilizations of more than 500 years of English vocabularies, and their language system? That is the reason why Bahasa Malaysia is put as first language; to take serious action in developing our own language; the language of Malaysia identity and heritage. Is it possible to be a Developed nation by using our own language? Maybe we can learn from South Korea, a nation with quite similar background like us. They are developing and becoming better than us in almost all sectors. The only different is that we are living in multi-racial citizens and they are not. They are using their mother tongue language to be success like today. What about taking examples of other countries that adopted English language as the language in education such as Philippines, Pakistan or South Africa? Were they success? What about to look into any other countries on the globe (most probably Commonwealth countries) that English-language as their second language adopted this kind of policy and proves to be success? Success in this context is to achieve and becoming the Developed country. I really doubt on the implementation with baseless assumptions, evidence-less and unproven elsewhere. Like I put the fact before; until today, it has already touch more than 10 million learners. Are we gambling with these 10 million lives like a lab rat? Every decision-making especially when involving national interest must have strong principle behind it. At the beginning of the change in 2002, there was no research, no piloting, no good preparation, no consultation with educationist, and not even consulting the parents. The implementations were so chaotic, with sudden implementation to standard 1, and form 1 students as well lower 6 students in the year 2003! And today, after 9 years of the implementation, as only 5-7% of the classes are using 100% English, it reflects the wastage of the chaotic policy. This is an ill-conceived policy! What I argued so far are related to the objectives of the PPSMI according to the exact words from the circular of SPI 11/2002. Ive not mentioning on extreme-nationalist aspect or what so ever. That would be other aspects that will take another chapter. The arguments are purely on the policy statements! The virtues behind the implementations are so much in questioned even before the first day of the implementation and it will continue on. Truly, this is what I think everyone would agree. We want to be a developed country by the year 2020. It also stated in the vision 2020 documents that it should be in Malaysian mould, which means the Developed nation status must not jeopardize the character or identity of Malaysia. In order to move forward, we have to have as many knowledge as we can. Mastering more than two languages is important to acquire skills, knowledge and technology at those particular countries such as US, China, Japan, Korea and Germany and so on. In the case of Malaysia, English has been placed as second

language since Independence Day, probably because we are from Commonwealth; the ex-British colonized country. Today, theres no doubt English language is important language of multi sources and media. English language serves as language of economic and language of knowledge. In terms of the product of our education system, our graduates fail to reach certain criteria of competence workers in the aspect of soft-skills which include communications skills, as well as critical and creative thinking to solve problems and making decision as I put in earlier paragraph above. This is the main premise of what I think should be the principle of any changes in the curriculum or policy. Let a root remains as a root by defining a problem correctly to find or implement a right and responsible policy. Evidence-based policies for education are important especially given the rise of accountability. In our school system today, accountability is highly questioned when teachers and administrators need continuous professional development, effective materials, and other supports that closely aligned with students achievement, such as assessment system, school cultures, and infrastructures and so on. As doctors might be accountable for their success rates of operations with various conditions, but they would never use procedures discordant with rigorous, widely accepted research. Similarly, schools should be expected to use methods known to be affective in general and then to make certain that their particular implementation of those methods is of sufficient quality to ensure progress on a nations generation. This is the politics of virtue.