A colossal RM6 billion was spent on equipment, teacher training and incentives on a education policy that was short lived, said Sri Tanjung assemblyman Chan Foong Hin.
TAWAU: Newly minted Deputy Education Minister (1) Mary Yap, has been accused of misleading the Parliament over the teaching of science and mathematics in English (PPSMI) which was introduced in 2002/2003.
Sri Tanjung assemblyman Chan Foong Hin said he was shocked to hear Yap tell the Dewan that the motive of the PPSMI policy was not to improve the command of English by students in the country.
“The Deputy Minister’s first statement totally contradicted with itself when she also mentioned that PPSMI’s objective was not to master English, but to obtain information in science and mathematics.
“My question is, if the student’s command in English is poor, then how can they obtain information in science and mathematics which is taught in English?”
He said that it was widely known that PPSMI was the brainchild of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad to improve the standard of English starting at school level.
The Ministry of Education, he said, introduced the policy in 2002/2003 stating that “the policy decision to implement PPSMI was made to ensure students’ mastery in science and mathematics in view of the fact that most of the sources are available in the English language”.
As such, he said, the policymakers had acknowledged that a command of the English language was necessary and was currently lacking, he pointed out.
In view of this, he said, Yap was misleading the House when she denied that one of the initial objectives was to enhance students’ command of English.
‘Parliament is not a classroom’
Chan also noted that Yap failed to answer the question posed by Hasbullah Othman (BN-Gerik), a BN/Umno backbencher.
“Hasbullah’s question is about “what had been achieved”, and not “what has been introduced to improve English command.
“Why should she refer to the objective of the PPSMI and talk about what other programmes had been undertaken by government to improve the English command among the students?” he asked.
He said a colossal amount of money (RM6 billion) had been spent on equipment, teacher training and incentives on a policy that was short lived after it was implemented from 2003 and finally shelved in 2011.
Chan also reminded that it was the current Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin who advocated the abolishment of this policy, citing poor returns of 4% in English language achievement (PEMBINA report), while mathematics and science achievement among students had also fallen compared to the previous results published in 2003 (2007 TIMSS report).
He said the government should acknowledge that it needs to reverse the policy. The policy had failed to improve the command of English and had dragged down the standard of mathematics and science achievement,
“Parliament is not a school. Answering parliamentary questions is not about undertaking disciplinary action against students. Don’t sidestep the question.
“The attitude of ‘this is my answer and if you are not interested, I won’t answer’ will not earn you any political mileage,” he said.
- See more at: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2013/07/05/don%e2%80%99t-sidestep-question-deputy-education-minister-told/#sthash.8JGXGNk0.dpuf
