Students victims of politics in education and lip service

 

From Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim

We refer to the report “Ironic if BN, PN seen as more progressive in DLP issue, says Guan Eng”.

The Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia (PAGE) is elated that Penang has finally risen to the occasion as far as the Dual Language Programme (DLP) is concerned.

However, be forewarned that the state education departments in Sabah, Johor, Kuala Lumpur and Melaka are not listening to us and acting upon our requests.

Unfortunately, education minister Fadhlina Sidek has no intention of retracting her regretful and grave decision to impose the mandatory one non-DLP class, which would be most embarrassing to her political career.

The education ministry released the so-called new and improved DLP guidelines – Surat Pekeliling Ikhtisas (SPI) Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia (KPM) Bilangan (Bil.) 5 Tahun 2024: Garis Panduan Pelaksanaan DLP dated March 19, 2024 – which has superseded all earlier guidelines.

Clause 12.2.8 has been added to the new guidelines dictating that Year One and Form One must have one mandatory non-DLP class. Whether or not a parent desires it for their child is irrelevant. The parents’ wish, which is in the spirit of DLP, has been blatantly ignored and quashed. The minister’s wish overrides all others.

Two elite schools, namely the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (the alma mater of the prime minister) and Tunku Kurshiah College (the alma mater of the prime minister’s wife) intend to ignore clause 12.2.8 and proceed with status quo as it has been from the start.

The new guidelines explicitly exclude Sarawak, which gets to maintain its SPI KPM Bil. 7 Tahun 2019: Pelaksanaan DLP Sarawak Mulai Tahun 2020. It has exclusively allowed all its primary schools to conduct DLP in full since 2020, which means that the medium of instruction of all science and mathematics classes is the English language.

It is the only state where the education department, with the full support of the state’s education, innovation and talent development ministry (MEITD), has permission from the federal education ministry to do so.

In March 2024, the education ministry “confirmed there are no plans to allocate more funds to conduct the DLP in the future”.

MEITD, however, revealed in April that Sarawak had been given a budget of RM18 million for DLP. It appears now that Sabah and the peninsula were not budgeted for DLP, and parents have been held to ransom.

While Sarawak has capitalised on the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) as regards independence in education, Sabah has taken a more conservative stance. The peninsula is now the step-child. The workforce needs to be industry-ready and the time is now.

Madani is the Malay acronym for SCRIPT which stands for “Sustainability, Care and Compassion, Respect, Innovation, Prosperity and Trust”. The education minister would do well to reflect on what has transpired during her watch in regard to the English language and STEM.

DLP will sustain if she emulates Sarawak, shows care and Compassion to our children, shows Respect to parents, enhances Innovation in science, and Malaysia will gain Prosperity when students are proficient in STEM English, and gain Trust from parents that you have our children in their best interests.

Sarawak has truly embraced and elevated Madani to a higher level unlike Sabah and the peninsula where the education minister merely pays lip service. Aren’t we Malaysians after all? - FMT

Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim is the chairman of the Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia (PAGE).

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.