Reflections on the "English language" question

by P Ramakrishnan

A whole history of bitter conflicts over different languages has taught us that language – Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese, or even English – is such a powerfully emotive issue in our plural society.

Hence it was a pleasant surprise to find that there wasn't a vociferously negative response to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's recent poser: Should English-medium schools be reintroduced to enable Malaysia to integrate with the new global economy?

Indeed Dr Mahathir had stated: 'If the people want it, we will do so. Being democratic, the government has to respond to what the people want.'

On 6 May, when speaking to reporters after delivering his keynote address at the 35th International General Meeting of the Pacific Basin Economic Council, Dr Mahathir clarified that it was the government's duty to explain why some people had failed to integrate with the new economy due to their poor command of the English language.

What a democratic approach to language policy Dr Mahathir seemed to be taking!

O.K., Boss!

Then, Minister of Education, Tan Sri Musa Mohamad fell in line with his boss and echoed that his Ministry would gather public opinion before making a decision on the issue. Musa added, 'We are living in the era of globalisation where we need to communicate with the international community which predominantly uses English. We need to study this from all aspects and the Ministry wants as much public input before making a decision on the matter.'

In fact, on May 3, this seemingly new take on the English language as the medium of instruction issued from UMNO's Kubang Pasu division in Kedah, which passed a resolution calling for several subjects in schools to be taught in English.

Kubang Pasu is Dr Mahathir's constituency. Its resolution was a cue from the very top of the political hierarchy, from Dr Mahathir himself, that a political decision had to be taken to arrest what everyone knows to be a steady deterioration in the standard of English in Malaysia.

Maybe that's why, unlike previous occasions when the 'English language question' arose, the statements from Kubang Pasu, Dr Mahathir and Minister Musa provoked no nationalistic fervour, furore or opposition. This was remarkable since the suggestion was not just to place greater emphasis on the teaching and use of English but to reintroduce English-medium schools.

Stuck in a Cabinet

Subsequently the development of the 'English medium-school' issue took a different turn. After the weekly Cabinet meeting on 8 May, Dr Mahathir said that the Cabinet had discussed the reintroduction of an English-medium school system.

But the ministers didn't have very much to say, it seemed, because Dr Mahathir admitted that 'We did touch on the topic but it was not discussed at length as we want to hear what the people have to say on the subject.'

Naturally people wanted to know why this 'burning topic', raised from the top, and echoed by the Minister of Education, was 'not discussed at length' by the Cabinet. Was it because the 'political will' was absent? In other words, were UMNO ministers not in favour of their leader's suggestion?

After the UMNO Supreme Council meeting of 10 May, Dr Mahathir announced that the Supreme Council had rejected the proposal to reintroduce English-medium schools on grounds that the proposal ran contrary to the National Education Policy.

Dr Mahathir intoned, 'This is our stand' but, democratic as ever, he added that 'The public can still disagree. And if the majority still want English-medium schools to be brought back, the government will have to do so. After all, not everyone in the country agrees with UMNO.'

And Who's to Say 'No'?

That UMNO Supreme Council decision was clearly a setback for Dr Mahathir's push to give greater emphasis for English. It's a ten-year setback. Way back in 1992 Dr Mahathir had extolled the need for mastery of the English language during an interview he gave to Indonesian journalists. At the time, Dr Mahathir was severely criticised by the Malay papers, and the idea of more English for better English died then and there.

(By the way, Zainuddin Maidin, then Utusan Group editor, was fired for criticising Dr Mahathir. But UMNO's been ever kind to so many comeback kids: Zainuddin is now Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Information! That, as they say in English, is a different story.)

However, the UMNO Supreme Council decision raised a different question: Can anybody recall when an UMNO decision was shot down and overridden by a 'majority' who think otherwise?

If maintaining the National Education Policy was the reason for rejecting Dr Mahathir's proposal to reintroduce English-medium schools, it didn't make sense for Dr Mahathir to keep proclaiming that the government will have to listen to the majority. Is Dr Mahathir truly prepared to defer to the wishes of the 'majority' even if it means overturning the National Education Policy? Has Dr Mahathir become that democratic, or has the whole issue been no more than play-acting?

For that matter, how is the government going to ascertain the views of the majority? Does it have a system to monitor public opinion and feedback? Will the government conduct a referendum to determine the preference of the 'majority'?

Get Your Act Together

Leaving aside this question of democratic practice – you will already know the answer – there's still one nagging question: how serious really is the government about arresting what many believe to be a disastrous decline in the Malaysian command of the English language?

As a former teacher of English, I recall very clearly how much anxiety was expressed in 1991 following a sharp drop in the pass rate for English in the SPM examinations. Almost at once, all kinds of people made all sorts of suggestions to improve the Malaysian standard of English.

But as with so many government policies and practices in this country, when the critical moment passed, the situation was back to square one. Despite the hullabaloo, there was no follow-up or any demonstration of the political will to implement meaningful policies to improve the standard of English.

Malaysians with good intentions might say, 'what a pity, a golden opportunity gone, 11 years wasted'. Had the right things been done, had serious efforts been made, we wouldn't be bemoaning the lack of proficiency in English now.

They wouldn't be wrong. But we should remember that even then the political leaders who expressed mock concern were often the very ones responsible for the rapid deterioration in English.

Among those 'leaders' were language chauvinists who provocatively defaced English sign boards. Among those 'leaders' were people who refused to converse in English. And there were also police personnel who refused to accept police reports in English.

Their enthusiasm to promote Bahasa Malaysia was never challenged. But they found it politically expedient to decry the importance of English with such blinkered views that they couldn't rationally promote the national good.

Why Now?

So why is the English language question being raised again?

One explanation is related to the staggering figures of unemployed graduates, and the recent claim that more than 90 per cent of them are Malay graduates whose lack of proficiency in English proficiency had hurt their employment prospects.

Employment or unemployment is not just a matter of being proficient or not in any one language. Nonetheless, it has become increasingly apparent that in today's borderless world, a good command in English would open many doors of opportunity.

Whether we like it or not, English is the primary language of knowledge and technology. The primacy of English is obvious when one visits a library or enters a bookshop, or one accesses the internet or watches TV. Even in Europe, French is fast losing to English in popular use.

It is by now a truism to say that new ideas and discoveries are more easily available in English than in any other language. Global trade is predominantly conducted in English. Training programmes in most fields are more easily available in English. Even if one doesn't want to raise a language that isn't native to us on a pedestal, we are still forced to acknowledge that English is the lingua franca of the world.

On pragmatic grounds alone, if our students and our citizens are not proficient in English, then their education, businesses and investments will suffer some damage, and we as a nation will be the poorer for it.

Are We Ready?

At this juncture, there's no more talk about reintroducing a system of English-medium schools. Instead there are indications that Science and Mathematics will be taught in English starting from Standard One next year (while in the public universities more and more courses are supposed to be taught in English).

Assuming this is a right step forward, are we ready to implement this move straight away?

Policies in this country are so very often implemented without proper preparation. It is a critical reason why so many public programmes fail or turn out be unsustainable.

If we want to avoid fatal mistakes, one of the first things we need to know is how many English-language teachers we require. From my experience, and from the experiences of my colleagues who taught English for many many years, it is simply not good enough to 'kick off' the teaching of English in Science and Mathematics on a 'trial basis' in selected schools. For the policy to be effective, its implementation must take off in all schools simultaneously.

But we immediately run into a serious problem: by now, we no longer have sufficient numbers of qualified teachers. Clearly not all Science and Mathematics teachers, exclusively trained to teach in Bahasa Malaysia, can teach their subjects in English. On the other hand, teachers trained to teach English can't be suddenly deployed to teach Science and Mathematics.

Better Teachers for Better Students

We shouldn't fool ourselves. It isn't the students alone whose standard of English is poor. In many instances, the standard of English of the teachers can be appallingly poor.

Again from personal and collective experience, I could tell many stories of poor teaching in English. The stories tell of a range of teachers, all unacceptable in their ability or attitude or method: from teachers simply not knowing the language well, to those being frequently corrected by their students, to those 'using Bahasa to teach English' or never replying in English when spoken to.

Whatever our stand on the English language, those are sad stories that confirm a simple truth: unless and until we have sufficient and sufficiently proficient teachers, our students can't benefit from any policy to improve the standard of English.

On this matter, it is necessary for all quarters, too, to stop implying that the poor standard of English is a 'Malay' question, faced by Malay students and graduates, and to be resolved by Malay leaders. In rural schools, in vernacular schools, and in urban schools even, there are countless students, coming from non-English-speaking family backgrounds, who can't read, write or speak English with any level of proficiency.

If the move to improve English is well-intentioned and meant to succeed – and not just another one of those politically ambiguous and practically meaningless 'policies' – then these and other questions must be honestly confronted and earnestly answered.

Towards a National Will

Yet to improve and raise the average standard of English in this country doesn't requre a restoration of the English-medium schools of a previous era.

If anything, in my opinion, it would be a mistake to revive English-medium schools because the revival cannot be successfully accomplished throughout the country for various reasons. One obvious and compelling reason is: too many of our local settings – rural schools, vernacular schools, non-English-speaking communities – can't support a wide usage of English in social interaction.

Hence, it is preferable to have 'bilingual schools' which accord an equal importance to the English language, for example, by teaching it 'seriously' as a subject that students must take and must pass with acceptable grades.

In this context, it may not even be wise or right to begin by teaching Science and Mathematics. There isn't as much 'language content' in these subjects as in others. If we are serious about improving language, we might even think of teaching Islamic Studies or History in English. These are subjects, among others, like literature, which require constant reading, wide reference and sustained discussion – exactly the ingredients for a regular and profitable promotion of the usage of English.

For success, we shall need proper preparation. We need to train more English-language teachers to continue the tradition of a previous generation of teachers who taught English very well. In our teacher training colleges, the standards of English proficiency among would-be teachers of every subject should be raised.

Above all, we need will. But I don't mean the kind of political will that rams things down our throats while pretending to practise democracy out of a fake consideration for an unconsulted majority.

I mean the kind of will that we cultivate by earnest but patient promotion, with firm but rational persuasion, and via popular yet effective campaigns.

Above all, what we need is to inspire a national will of an honest and proud sort that means to see future generations of Malaysians mastering all kinds of languages for the right reasons: Bahasa Malaysia, English, their mother tongues, and the 'IT language' of the global era.

And for all that, Dr Mahathir, we need DE-MO-CRA-CY!

Now tell us what you think. E-mail us.