THE learning and teaching of English will become more costly and difficult with the Education Ministry’s decision to use imported textbooks, a DAP lawmaker said.

Bukit Bendera MP Zairil Khir Johari said the books Super Minds and Pulse 2 for Standard One and Two pupils, respectively, will cost around RM38 each, amounting to RM33 million to provide textbooks for each pupil in these two cohorts based on the latest enrolment figures.

The content of these books is also too foreign for Malaysian pupils to understand, thus making learning English harder for them, he said.

“Locally published textbooks currently used cost less than RM10 a copy,” the DAP’s parliamentary spokesman for education, science and technology said in a statement today.

Zairil was commenting on the ministry’s decision to align the English language curriculum with the Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFR).

Current textbooks under the existing Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah and Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Menengah will be replaced by books published by Cambridge University Press and Macmillan.

He said announcements on the new books for Standard One and Two pupils were made in ministry circulars issued on August 16 and September 12.

Of greater concern was that these textbooks have zero local content, Zairil said, as the examples used are foreign and unique to the British context.

Citing an example from Pulse 2, he said, pupils will be asked to “watch Channel 4” of British television in order to answer certain questions.

“(This) is incredibly foreign and meaningless in our Malaysian context (and) how are our pupils supposed to refer to the TV programme in question when Channel 4, a British TV station, is not available here in Malaysia?

“In order to facilitate the learning of any subject, it always helps when local cultural references are used. In this case, the extensive use of foreign cultural references will only confuse pupils and teachers.”

Zairil also questioned the pricing of these books as they were “not actually imported” but printed locally and supplied through local publishers. – November 23, 2017.