Bolehland has got the most unique education system in the whole wide world where kulit-fication and kulitocracy matters much more than qualification and meritocracy. Sooner or later, our Malaysian education system is going to be out of the world! No puns intended here but sarcasm of course.

As the old cliché goes, English is the lingua franca of communication internationally. Hence it’s undisputable that one should at least know how to read, write and converse in English decently.

Even while corresponding via email at work, more often than not I cringe when I spot so many grammatical errors and inappropriate choices of words. I wouldn’t dare to claim that my English is free from error either, but just imagine reading some write-ups which are to be presented or communicated with these errors. I personally do not think it’s acceptable.

Speaking of our national language, BM, there was one funny incident where my colleagues and I found hilarious.

Guess what? Retail Banking in English has been translated into “Perbankan Runcit” in one of the Berita Harian articles sometimes ago. We were laughing our heads off all day long. Even though until today we still do not know what the actual term is supposed to be in BM, we know for sure it shouldn’t be Perbankan Runcit.

And not too long ago, I have discovered and learnt a new “malay” word while watching the debate between Anwar and Shabby Cheek. All the while I had been cracking my head thinking “what the heck does “debat” mean”? After a short while, I was suddenly enlightened that it actually meant debate. It’s kinda lame and silly isn’t it? During my old school days, I had never come across such word and the word “perbahasan” was used to mean debate instead. The malay language has indeed gone through a massive evolution so much so that it would be a misnomer to use the term pure or standard BM.

What ALtPJK says is so true and I just can’t second it more!

For one to be proficient in a language, one needs to PRACTISE using the language in his/her daily life! However, Malaysians in general are not doing it for some reasons. They just refuse or do not know how to do it…(Perhaps because they have some pre-conceived notion that this is a Mat Salleh language (Bahasa Penjajah), or rather they just lack the confidence to converse in English.

The problem is, Malaysians in general have been brought up in inconducive conditions that have had a damaging impact on the mastery of a particular language. The social environment of this country, especially the education system, does not provide the key ingredients that are integral for a particular language to thrive firmly.

Talk about the vicious cycle of the English language in Malaysia;

In the first place, English has never been given enough emphasis; it has been scrambled with other languages during the life of the students in this country & society. The students were then influenced by the “Rojak” environment and turned out to be “Rojaks”. As those students grew up, they became more and more “Rojak” as they mixed with the other “Rojaks” who also came from the same “Rojak” environment. Eventually, those students grew up and became parents of “Rojak” language quality. Those parents raised children who were then automatically assimilated into all those “Rojak” languages that had become the lingua franca of Malaysia; the children picked them up and made this their second nature. Today, the finished products full of defects are all out there, and probably right under your nose.

Only those parents who were educated during the British colonial era would know how to educate their children in English. It baffles me to think if “Rojak” people are qualified to teach English too? (Note: “Rojak” people normally do not realise that they are “Rojaks”.) They would usually think that their English is good enough to survive and then impart their version of English to their students who will eventually become the next generation of “Rojaks”. OR, some teachers cannot be bothered about teaching the correct usage of English (Perhaps because they do not have a solid grasp of the language, or they just find it too hard and impractical to teach correct English), consequently their students do not learn anything beneficial from English classes. As the students are constantly taught, shaped, and moulded by their teachers, they would most likely automatically be influenced by their teachers’ poor command of the English language.

My definition of “Rojak” is those people who claim to be able to converse in several languages, and yet are not even eloquent in one of the languages, and they like to mix the languages together (probably due to too much of zak fan :-D). I wonder if our government is trying to breed a generation of social pariahs so that they could stay on in power? One that is incompetent and will eventually be cut off from the rest of the world due to their lack of good education and English language proficiency.