By Dr Chen Man Hin, DAP life advisor
PPMSI since its launch in 2002 to achieve a modern IT society has not made progress because of lack of purpose and unity. It was the product of the Mahathir dynasty, when PM Mahathir was pushing the idea of Bangsa Malaysia or Vision 2020.
His target of a progressive Malaysia could be achievable if the people were well versed in Mathematics and Science and they could make the country progressive like other high tech countries in Asia, like Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, S Korea and Taiwan. And as English was the language of Science and Maths, so the quickest way was to educate our youths to speak and write in English. Hence his cabinet pushed the policy of PPMSI (teaching and learning maths and science in English). That was in 2002.
The year now is 2011, what are the results? Are the students competent in English and well versed in Maths and Science?
Unemployable graduates, with deplorable English. The results have not been encouraging. It is well known that most of the university graduates are not equipped or trained to work in the commercial and business world. They have no communicating skills and could hardly write a letter in English. The businessmen coined these graduates as ‘unemployable graduates’.
Shocking low ranking in Maths and Science. The TIMS study 2007 showed that Malaysian students who participated in the international Maths and Science ranking showed that they have very low scores.
| MALAYSIA | SINGAPORE | HONG KONG | S KOREA | TAIWAN | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MATHEMATICS | GRADE 4 | 0 | 41 (NO 1) | 40 | 0 | 24 |
| GRADE 8 | 2 | 22 | 22 | 22 | 22 | |
| SCIENCE | GRADE 4 | 0 | 36 | 14 | 0 | 19 |
| GRADE 8 | 3 | 25 | 10 | 17 | 24 | |
The low scores for Malaysia students in an international renowned ranking body like TIMS should not be scoffed. It is very serious and puts the whole aim of 1 Malaysia in jeopardy. Without graduates well educated in English, Maths and Science, how can Malaysia join the ranks of developed countries like Singapore, Hong Kong or South Korea. The quest for a high income economy will be impossible to achieve by 2020.
Vital for PPSMI to be promoted and implemented with the greatest urgency. It is imperative for PM Najib Razak to put his weight behind the patriotism of PAGE which is fighting for the rights of hundreds of thousans of parents who want PPSMI for their children studying in our schools so that they can be talented and equipped to build a better high income Malaysia.
Learn from Singapore, a multiracial, multilingual society which chose Englis to be the common uniting language and to become a high income society with a per capita income of US$60,000, whereas the per capita for Malaysia is US$8,500.
Now look here. Umno is more important that everything else put together for umno is supreme. And to question umno is to be anti-agung, anti-sultan, anti-islam jenis umno, anti-gobermen, anti-melayu (actually umnoputra), unpatriotic, ungrateful, communist, terrorist, etc etc and hence ISA-able.
Now let me analyse the chart. I suspect those science and maths questions do not include anything on or about outer space. This is one area where our kids are supremely strong. Dont forget we have angkasawan and so we must be better then all those countries named in the chart.
The results stinks.
We must vote them out.
It will take a generation to reverse the trend as it looks like over 50% of the new graduates have to go if the education system were to achieve any semblance of progress! In the PISA srudy by Mackenzie, the top few nations which excelled in producing top results selected the top 30% of their graduates to become teachers! How do we do here? we have graduates of rojak subjects who can’t even handle elementary Maths and Science! Even if we could tukar the Gomen, we still need another generation to catch up! Do remember, we have some thing like 317,000 teachers under the gomen payroll! And most drifted into the service not out of love but could not find something else to do! We have been creating all thise As at the watered-down public erxaminations for ‘syiok sendiri” publicity; esentially to draw wool over the ignorant rural folks! some may like to draw the conclusion that that the last PISA test was somehow managed by the Shanghai City; it was rubbished by the organizer who actually controlled the random sampling of the 5,000 students picked for the exercise. As a matter of fact, I did ask the Chinese tour guide on that test. In reply he spoke of his nephew who could not enter one of the favoured Shanghai Secondary school, so his parents sent him to a well-known boarding school in Australia; he was able to brag that without effort he scored consistently As in his maths tests. And the reason he could not enter the desired school in Shanghai was becauser of his Maths results!! There is no doubt where our few generations will stand if we continue with the current trend!