Comment - It starts with political will

I WISH to congratulate my friend Datuk Azman Ujang for his courage and competence in writing his stimulating article, "Fix the decline in English" (Off the Cuff, June 12).
My response is: can we fix it? or will the government have the political will to fix it? The present fixation is, if ain't broken, why fix it?
Perhaps from a purely narrow political and the short-term point of view, the government is right from its perspective. It is obviously thinking of its votes for the next election. But we should all be more concerned with our long-term future and survival and our all-round socio-economic and political development on a sustainable long-term basis.
The government has to reject its populist politics and its tendency to adopt manja-manja policies. It needs to lead more firmly, rather than be led by political expediency, please.
The Sultan of Johor expressed his right royal views rightly, that "We have politicians in Malaysia who are in self-denial or who choose to play politics with education. They want to be heroes of their own race." These are strong words from the throne but they ring alarm bells that are so true.
Azman also expresses similar views that there has been "so much polemics and worse still politicking, and that we must tackle it (English teaching) head on".
How can we fix it?
First, government must have and show the political will, to lead strongly to benefit our children and future generations, by increasing the importance of raising the standard of education in English.
If there is little political will, we will continue to perform badly at school and university assessments, as revealed clearly by international comparisons. We can no longer hide away from the truth and pretend that all is well with our education system . The internet will tell us the truth to make us free.
Second, please make our national schools truly Malaysian and not practically Malay schools. As the Sultan has advised and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has stated too, please teach Science and Maths and a few other subjects in English. Then our school graduates can become more proficient in both Bahasa and English.
Furthermore, please do ensure that all pupils learn their mother tongue or a foreign language. The mother tongue has been neglected in our national schools. Hence parents prefer to send their children to vernacular schools, mainly because they want to benefit from their heritage of their rich cultures. There is nothing wrong with this natural human aspirations.
Children have shown especially, all over the developed world that they can cope well with learning three languages. So why can't we teach them in Malay, English and their mother tongue, as we approach developed status by 2020?
Teachers who go the extra mile to teach in English as well as Bahasa could be given higher incentive allowances.
There can be two levels of English competencies. The higher standard, English One, can be taught to those who want to advance their studies at tertiary level. And the majority of students who do not wish to be better qualified for much better futures could just take the compulsory English Two exams to enable them to just get by in English. At least they would have their freedom to choose, with parental and teacher guidance on their education and their future careers.
Third, as the valuable Education Blueprint indicates very clearly, not all students enjoy academic training. Many or most prefer technical education where they can acquire skills that can give them rewarding jobs, rather than become misfits. As misfits from our present inadequate system, many often end up as gangsters and Mat Rempits and loan sharks. Can we blame them? We are partly responsible for their misbehaviour in society as social misfits, aren't we? We denied them opportunities to learn English and technical skills, didn't we?
Fourth, Azman correctly points out that many teachers are traumatised in teaching English, as they are not well trained themselves to teach in English. People like me and Azman would be traumatised as well, if we were inadequately taught to teach English.
So why not revamp the Training Colleges to enable lecturers to be better qualified to train properly? But here is where the rot has set in, since the best and most potentially committed teachers and lecturers are not selected. Hence we often get poor quality and traumatised teachers and lecturers. We have to aim more for meritocracy rather mediocrity.
We did not do enough in the past and so we are now paying the price of decline in many fields. The birds are coming home to roost!
Fifth, I served in an Education Advisory Committee, under the chairmanship of the late distinguished scholar Tan Sri Nordin Sopiee. There we learnt a lot about the declining education system. We made some good, strong recommendations. But the political leaders did not take heed. Like the Sultan of Johor has candidly said, "Be honest and listen to the people."
I respectfully appeal to our leaders to please listen to us the rakyat, or we will be more reluctant to just listen to you at election time.
Sixth, if the government is still reluctant to move forward in the teaching of English, for its own short-term political and pragmatic reasons, then please do not deny those who want to learn more English. Please encourage the former mission schools and private educational institutions to expand and serve society better.
Many of us benefited greatly, like our prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak himself, from going to mission schools. So why not get the mission schools and the private sector to do more to teach English? Then we won't have so much of the brain drain and capital outflows that we suffer from today from the present middle-income trap.
If we do not break out from this economic trap, we may not be able to fully achieve our Vision 2020 targets and sustain the Vision 2020 for long. We could get to it, have it for some time and then lose sight of it sooner than later. Then what, all our labour will be lost to a lost generation.
Seventh, we must realise that we have a duty to uplift the poor, as envisioned by the NEP and all our five-year and perspective plans. But how do we raise the standard of living and the quality of life of the bottom 40% of our people, if we do not squarely address this vital issue of teaching more English?
The vast majority of the bottom 40% are Malays and bumis. Do we want to leave them behind, while other races move faster up the socio-economic ladder, by learning more English to compete more effectively in a globalised world?
Eighth, as Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has said, "the government has no plan to revert the medium of instruction in national schools from Bahasa to English."
I think most Malaysians would support his views. But we can do what is pragmatic and acceptable to all moderate Malaysians. That is to surely maintain Malay as our medium of instruction, but please give more priority to the teaching of English in our schools and universities. Then we will be able to raise our educational standards, expand our employment opportunities, our income levels and our national capacity to continue to progress on a sustainable basis.
In conclusion, like Azman and other moderate Malaysians, we hope and pray that our leaders will lead resolutely, in promoting the teaching of more English, so that our posterity will be grateful to us, for having the courage and foresight to plan and implement well, for their future success and our own sustained national progress.
Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam is chairman of the ASLI Centre of Public Policy Studies. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com