ALLOWING mission schools to revert to using English as the teaching medium would be the first step toward improving pupils’ proficiency in the language, said the Federation of Councils of Christian Mission Schools of Malaysia (FCCMSM).

Federation chairman Moey Yoke Lai said the phasing out of English-medium schools three decades ago had done untold damage to Malaysian pupils’ command of the language, but said the deterioration could be reversed by revival of such schools.

“It will be a mighty task but it is still possible if some schools that are better equipped to teach English – like mission schools – could revert to using English as the medium of instruction.

“The government can let these schools revert into English-medium schools so they can teach various subjects, like Geography and History, in English.

“Mission schools originally used English as the medium of instruction until the government changed it to BM (Bahasa Melayu),” Moey said, citing Methodist schools in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, and Penang, and St Mary’s School in Kuala Lumpur as examples of schools that placed emphasis on mastery of English.

She said that as long these schools ensured that BM was not relegated, there should not be any problem.

“The students will equally conversant in English and BM. We will see a revival of English in everyday conversation.  All Malaysians will be trilingual or bilingual if they are fluent in English, BM and their respective mother tongues. 

“Malaysians will go places,” Moey told The Malaysian Insight.

She said there were capable English teachers who could be persuaded out of retirement to to teach the language.

The government currently allows about 300 schools nationwide to implement the Dual Language Programme which gives the schools the choice of teaching Mathematics, Science, and Information Technology and Communication in English or Bahasa Melayu.

“But they are not English-medium schools.

“If the programme is successful in those schools, they should export the programme to more schools,” said Moey who is also the Methodist College Kuala Lumpur chief executive officer.

She has been an educationist for 45 years, teaching in government schools and government-aided mission schools, and has firsthand experience of the poor command of English among Malaysian students today.

She said that after English-medium schools were phased out, the language was consigned to second place.

“But the real setback was when it became non-compulsory to pass English in the SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia). Students need to pass BM and History only, and that has led to the decline in the use of the English language in the country.”

“As a result, many students today can hardly tell the difference between present and past tense, singular and plural, aside from being poor in spelling.

“Now we have graduates who can’t write a proper letter in English and their employers end up doing the job, which hampers business,” Moey said.

She said the FCCMSM and Malayan Christian Schools’ Council (MCSC) felt English should be introduced as the teaching medium in a few schools for a start, and then extended to more schools once proven successful. 

Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE) is among those who are also championing the revival of English-medium schools.

“States like Sabah and Sarawak, which have some autonomous powers over matters like education, should be allowed to have English-medium schools if they want.

“For schools in Peninsular Malaysia, schools in the bigger cities like Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Ipoh, Johor, and Kuantan, should be given the chance to lead the way.

“We will have to see if the government will allow this,” said Moey.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan said recently that Malaysia should consider reviving English-medium schools to raise the competitiveness of the country’s workforce in Industrial Revolution 4.0.

He said this after a recent survey by Singapore’s Yusof Ishak Institute (Iseas) found that eight out of 10 Johoreans wanted the return of English-medium schools.

PAGE has lauded Johor’s support for the reintroduction of English-medium schools. PAGE chairman Noor Azimah Rahim said Phase Two of the transformational Malaysian Education Blueprint (2013-2025) calling for a radical approach to achieve proficiency in English showed there was political will to pilot English-medium schools.

Azimah said the government could make sure Bahasa Melayu was not neglected by making a national average score in the language a requirement for those enrolled in English-medium schools.

The language of instruction in school is a sensitive and contentious issue in Malaysia, and education policies are often made and changed under political pressure or for political gain.

At the “Malaysian Education: Where Are We Heading” forum on Tuesday, former senior education ministry official Satinah Syed Saleh said Prime Minister Najib Razak had supported the use of English when he was education minister.

But Najib had backtracked on it since becoming prime minister and was not doing anything to bring back English-medium schools, perhaps because he was “afraid of losing the general election”, Satinah had said. – December 2, 2017.