The Internet is becoming a very powerful medium of acquiring knowledge and ideas. The lingua fanca of the Internet is English. So the ketuanan Melayu government does mind keeping the Malays ignorant. They prefer to translate all the knowledge selectively so that they can still control the minds of the Malays. Just look at the teaching of History. There were many historical facts that are not being taught to the students in Malaysian schools. Facts that embarrass them were being removed from history books.

So if the Malays were to learn English, they would be empowered to seek knowledge and ideas through the Internet. To prevent that from happening, the government would sabotage any policy that would enable the people to learn English. And with a weak command of English the government hope that the Malays will not have the drive and initiative to seek knowledge from the Internet.

This country can’t face reality; hence it can never have reform no matter how much we talk and how many slogans we churn out. Please don’t not misunderstand me; if we need to uplift the economic position or create employment for certain race, we must make sure that these people are properly trained and certified before there are given positions. If they can’t make it, they must repeat and repeat again until they are competent enough. For goodness sake, please don’t pass incompetent people and allow them to hold important positions. It is a recipe of disaster. We owe this much to ourselves and this nation.

When fools govern a country, there will be chaoes.

There is no longer systematic way of doing things.

The “rakyat” will suffer landing nowhere in this world.

How can these “leaders” be so un-wise. They have done a disservice to the country.

Do they actually have aims? May be just a slogan.

I heard of claims that Malaysia has one of the best education standards in the world. I don’t know who said so but all our tertiary institutions has not even been listed in the top 300 universities in the world. Yet UMNO leaders still claim that we have one of the best educational standards in the world.

Fools they are! Not us!

Following is the intended post:

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/7/11/nation/20090711165608&sec=nation
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/7/12/nation/4304638&sec=nation

I believe the finding of unnecessary Topics for budget spending is behind what the BN politicians actually want.

Do they care for Education?

to abide by Rules and Regulations. What NJ said can only be Talk and cannot be Walked!!

The Abuse of Rights and NOT following Rules and Regulations are the Basic for the Police NOT doing their jobs.

Does Hishamuddin press the Police to do their work accordingly?
Does the PM press his Cabinet to do the same? If PM cannot even pressing his Ministers to answer the inquiries by

the Parliament on the PKFZ scandal and many others, HE already had not done his job! Can HE talk and walk for the

future?

Perhaps Bakri Musa and Jeffrey could come to some sort of arrangement which would allow Bakri Musa to get some exposure as a social commentator, only with factually correct and genuinely intellectual articles?

What M.Bakri Musa said is true. These policy makers implement ‘backward policies’ on the people & send their own children overseas.

Math & Science (M&S) must be taught in English. This is never about one language above the other. Never. Should the Malay language be the more suitable language for Science & Math, the whole world would teach their children M&S in Malay Language.

For those who are overly sensitive please read on & read carefully. I said this is never about one language above the other. Make no mistake, the Malay language is great in its own way. I am from the time when everything was taught in Malay.

Our “perumpamaan”, “puisi” and “pantun” just to name a few, are beautiful. In Malay language, there are ways to say beautiful things that can never be translated in any other language accurately. In fact they’re so great I’ve seen foreigners coming to M’sia just to study them.

But when in comes to M&S, English is more suitable. When I studied M&S (in Malay), I felt that many terms where simply made up or copied from English into Malay without much consideration. To me, M&S terms in Malay does not hold much value.

Consider these English -> Malay M&S terms:
thermometer = termometer
beaker = bikar
arithmetic = arimetik
vector = vektor
oxygen = oksigen
organic = organik
cell = sel
buthane = butana
logarithm = logaritma

I think our ‘Language Experts’ took about two seconds to translate each M&S term from English to Malay. And they took about three seconds to decide the fate of our nation’s youngsters.

Please, stop this. By reverting again, you’re not glorifying the Malay Language, you’re cheapening it, & insulting it’s beauty.

Dear Education Minister & whoever is involved in your decision making, soon there will be scientists, mathematicians, business women coming out from this system.
How do you expect them to communicate with the rest of the world?
Or do you want our youngsters to just hide in M’sia?

I studied science in Malay. Once at work, I referred to a “beaker” as “bikar” in my report. Do you know what happened next?
I was shamed to the ground by everyone who read the report. People from other departments made jokes about “bikars”. And my boss was shamed greatly along with me. What happens after that is history. Nuf said.

Some of these modern studies on cognitive advantages of bilingualism amongst children at young age have been pointed out by Lee Wang Yen in earlier thread on this subject.

They should give equal attention to both National Language and English throughout from primary to secondary level. If they do so the children can cope.

I don’t think this scrapping of teaching of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI) is – as what Bakri asserts – attributable to UMNO’s agenda to keep “Malay children perpetually trapped economically and intellectually” so as to preserve its vote bank. For if they were trapped economically and intellectually, it is equally as plausible that they would be susceptible to PAS’s influence and vote for it instead of UMNO.

The fact is PPSMI has not yielded desired results in spite of its costs. It is due to PPSMI being a half-hearted measure intended to bring up English by baby steps but in a way as not to compete with the hallowed high place accorded to the National Language consistent with “Ketuanan” (in deference to Bahasa activists and also MCA’s Chinese educationist lobbyists).

There is no infrastructure to support and make PPSMI effective. That is why even Kit derides it. We have science and mathematics teachers with half-baked English and to fill the gap they’re having English trained teachers half-baked in science and mathematics to support (in what they call a “buddy system” as in diving terminology) to help. In the end, neither Science/Mathematics nor English is learned!

I agree with Bakri they should give add more English in curriculum than detract/subtract it (which is the impression given by the scrapping of PPSMI). Their main challenge and constraint is how to give more commitment to greater English exposure without detracting the premier status of the national language. The latter is a political imperative. The question of what other method there is in striking of this “balance “ is a thing that they are juggling now.

I’m however not sure of Bakri’s other contention – that the objective of pre-modern Chinese practice of feet binding was “to limit their mobility and participation in life outside the little world of their homes so that these women would then be totally dependent on their men” though it might well tend inevitably to that effect.

Likely the objective was to make them physically desirable to men: tiny bound feet means that when the woman walked she has to jiggle more her posterior. One may ask how would deformed feet, when unbound in privacy of home, enhance eroticism? Such is the perversity of humans’ imagination that forbidden fruit including bound feet forbidden from sight always tastes or looks better! :)

According to Wikipedia foot binding originated first among the elite and only in the wealthiest parts of China, “which suggests that binding the feet of well-born girls represented their freedom from manual labor and, at the same time, the ability of their husbands to afford wives who did not need to work, who existed solely to serve their men and direct household servants while performing no labor themselves. The economic and social attractions of such women may well have translated into sexual desirability among elite men.”

The PR must pay more attention to the chief of his advisors….Rosmah….Lee Kuan Yew did…