Govt to make it compulsory for foreign students to learn BM

 

Foreign students studying in Malaysia will be compelled to learn Bahasa Malaysia, said Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

This was one of two measures announced by the premier to uplift Bahasa Malaysia.

"I have discussed it with the higher education minister (Wanita Umno chief Noraini Ahmad), and she agreed that it be made compulsory for all foreign students in the country to learn Bahasa Malaysia,' he said at the Umno general assembly today.

Ismail Sabri has been pushing for broader use of Bahasa Malaysia.

Last month, he revealed that government officials have been ordered to use Bahasa Malaysia primarily when speaking abroad, including at international conferences.

English is only the second option if the other party is speaking in that language.

PM aims to make BM second official Asean language

Ismail Sabri reiterated at the Umno AGM that there is no reason to feel awkward speaking Malay, even on the international stage.

The Umno vice-president said there were more than 300 million people in Asean who spoke Bahasa Malaysia, and that it was the seventh most widely used language in the world.

It is his ambition to make Bahasa Malaysia the second official language of Asean, he added.

Besides making Bahasa Malaysia lessons compulsory for foreign students, the prime minister announced that the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) Act would be amended to include enforcement powers.

He said, for example, this would allow DBP to act on signboards with bad use of Bahasa Malaysia. - Mkini