THE product of almost two generations who have to go through an education system that’s English-unfriendly, the vast majority of Malaysians are struggling with this vital international language.
Not much, if at all, has been done to address this issue but all is not lost if moving forward, all stakeholders take a real hard look at whether the nation has achieved a return on investment for the exponential costs that go into the education sector.
There have been several reforms of the school syllabus undertaken in the past but because they hardly touched or emphasised the crucial need for English proficiency in schools, such expensive exercises have not achieved the desired impact.
We are now going through yet another proposed reform of the syllabus which Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has indicated, is aimed at ensuring that students can master all important subjects and improve their employability.
Mahathir has on numerous occasions exhorted Malaysians to master English but now it’s everyone’s hope that the new Pakatan Harapan government would execute some game-changing plans to close the widening gap in English deficit we are facing.
Hardly a week ago, the prime minister himself spoke in eloquent English at the Oxford Union Debate in Britain, becoming the first Malaysian and Asean leader to be invited to address the forum.
Dr Yaacob Hussain Merican, one of Malaysia’s most senior lawyers, was so impressed with Mahathir while watching the live broadcast of the debate that he wrote a letter, which was published by theSun on Wednesday.
“I have never been more proud to be a Malaysian than while watching the live broadcast of Tun Dr Mahathir speaking his mind in response to impromptu questions and the manner he put a stop to ferocious questions levelled at him at the dialogue session,” said Yaacob.
DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang said he could foresee a possible resistance towards the prime minister’s bid to reform the school syllabus, describing it as “one of the greatest challenges” for the country.
And he urged all Malaysians to throw their support behind the prime minister’s plan, adding that Malaysia should emulate China, which has placed emphasis on human capital as its most important resource.
Actually we don’t have to look too far. Just across the Johor causeway, Singapore is a much better example where its human capital is recognised as among the world’s best, with its education system firmly based on English as the medium.
One of the pet subjects of any public debate on the unemployment problem among graduates locally is the mismatch between education system and job market demands.
And the lack of English proficiency is always cited by employers as the key missing link in the list of soft skills required.
I, for one, share the view that it’s not so much unemployed graduates but unemployable graduates.
For quite a while now the saving grace for Malaysia’s demand for employees who are English-proficient has been the large number of private-run universities with their medium of instruction in English.
But these institutions are largely beyond the affordability of the low-income group who flock to public universities where English is used only minimally.
Prof Michael Woolcock of Harvard University, at a forum in Kuala Lumpur not too long ago, opined that the education system in Malaysia doesn’t work for the lower class.
“They are unable to apply theory or understand English. It is not a geography issue. In Malaysia, it’s a class issue. For a system to really work well, it has to work for everybody,” he said.
His recent study in the country showed that 51% of those from the lower class were unable to read manuals due their poor proficiency in English.
Other studies have pointed to an even larger percentage of English deficit in students and graduates.
“Poor English proficiency is a major concern that should be addressed,” said Woolcock, who cited Iceland as an example where everyone speaks Icelandic but is proficient in English as well.
Prof Lant Prichett, also of Harvard University, said that local students pay too much attention in memorisation for exams instead of understanding the study materials.
“Most students leave primary and secondary schools without understanding the subjects,” he said.
Taking these views into account, this new education reform is long overdue but let’s pray hard that it won’t end up as just another costly exercise.
Plugging the English loopholes so to speak, should no longer be an issue for further wasteful polemic.
Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, in an interview over BBC’s HARDtalk on Wednesday, also spoke of the need for a reform in the school syllabus.
Our youngest ever Cabinet minister is indeed a shining example of how far one can go, even at just 25 years old, with English proficiency.
So let’s fix the system one and for all.
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