JULY 10 — Initially, when I got wind of the decision to revert back to mother tongue language to teach science and maths in primary schools, my first reaction was of welcome relief.
I had read research papers that had inferred that learning science and maths in one's own mother tongue may be the most effective way to master these two subjects in the first few years of schooling. I also welcomed the increase in the duration of teaching English as a subject as a first step to bring back excellence in the learning of English.
I was however aghast and shocked when I later found out that even in secondary schools, the teaching of maths and science would revert to Bahasa Malaysia.
When some of us pushed for science and maths to be taught in the mother tongue language, it was for the initial few years (primary level, especially for the first three years), when many students might not have the ability to understand instructions in English since most of them, apart from those in certain urban areas, have never come into contact with the language before.
But by the time they reach secondary schools, most of them would have already had a few years of English lessons, and would be able to understand simple instructions in English, which would be sufficient for maths and science to be taught in English effectively.
My own experience can probably illustrate that the best combination for any student is to learn maths and science in his mother tongue language at the primary level and in English in secondary schools.
I was from the Chinese medium. In primary school, I learned maths and science in Mandarin, and by Standard 2 or 3 we were quite well verse with the multiplication table.
When I went to a Chinese-medium secondary school — Chung Ling High School in Penang — these two subjects were taught in English. Most of us had no problem mastering and excelling in them.
My alma mater, Chung Ling High School, has produced countless doctors , lawyers, PhD holders, professors and university lecturers and other professionals who are now scattered all over the world.
The success of its students especially in fields related to science and maths speaks for itself about the policy of teaching these technical subjects in English, in the Sixties and early Seventies.
We sat for Cambridge School Certificate, equivalent to the O-level, and our pass rate in maths and science was almost 100 per cent. I scored eight distinctions out of eight subjects for my School Certificate.
Six of us from my Form 5 class enrolled in the Medical Faculty of University of Singapore, the biggest number from a single school on both sides of the Causeway. All six of us shared the distinction of being from the Chinese medium but were taught science and maths in English. We have no problems at all adjusting to a milieu steep in English.
We never had any problems in the transition from a Chinese school to an English-language university. The only initial adjustment was the discovery of certain differences in our values and outlook compared to those from the English stream. But in terms of academic performance, we were on par with those from Singapore or English schools in Malaysia.
The same could be said of those of our schoolmates who went overseas .
Incidentally, one of my seniors from Chung Ling — a product of the Chinese stream who was taught science and maths in English at the secondary level and a straight As student in the Cambridge School Certificate — is now the minister in charge of and the brain behind KPI. He is none other than the former Chief Minister of Penang, Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon. He, for those who may not know, is a physics graduate from Princeton and a PhD holder from Chicago.
It is an undeniable fact that English is the lingua franca of the scientific world. Once students have mastered the basics of science and maths in the first few years of their lives using their mother tongue language, early exposure to the two subjects in English at the secondary level would better prepare them for the transition awaiting them when they go to the tertiary level, where most research papers and the latest scientific discovery would be in English. It would save them much anguish and frustration trying to adjust at the tertiary level.
In my opinion, by Standard 4 certain technical and scientific terms in English should be slowly introduced to the students.
So, while I welcome the teaching of these two subjects in the mother tongue language at the primary level, I would like to urge the minister of education to seriously reconsider the decision to do the same for the secondary level.
It would, in my humble opinion, be a step backward.
The writer is a central committee member of Party Gerakan.
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