No need for English-medium schools, says teachers’ group

 

Ikatan Guru-Guru Muslim Malaysia says setting up English-medium schools will widen the educational gap between urban and rural students.

PETALING JAYA: A Muslim teachers’ group has opposed a proposal to have an English-medium school in every state.

Ikatan Guru-Guru Muslim Malaysia (iGuru) said the proposal made by a parents’ group was akin to “reviving the discrimination in education that was practised by the English colonisers”.

Its president, Azizee Hasan, said the education ministry should instead redouble its efforts to improve students’ mastery of English through the existing “Memartabatkan Bahasa Melayu dan Memperkukuh Bahasa Inggeris” (MBMMBI) policy by emphasising the preparation of teaching staff, pedagogy, infrastructure, and students’ preparedness.

Parent Action Group for Education (Page) chairman Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim, who made the proposal, said it would ensure that students would go on to become English language teachers, thus ensuring a consistent stream of English proficient teachers.

She also urged the ministry to scale up its Dual Language Programme (DLP) by giving greater authority and scope to its English-language unit.

Her proposal was supported by Mak Chee Kin, head of the Melaka Action Group for Parents in Education, who suggested that retired teachers competent in the DLP be rehired on contract.

In a statement today, Azizee said iGuru did not deny the importance of English, which needed to be mastered by those intending to pursue higher studies in science and technology.

However, he said, the proposal to establish English-medium schools would widen the educational gap between urban and rural schools.

“Such discrimination will not help the students from low-income groups since education needs to be provided in a fair and equitable manner to students in all schools and districts,” he said.

He said the ministry should continue to uphold the status of Malay as the official language of the country, and improve the learning of English with a “much more accommodative, constructive, dynamic and holistic approach”.

“iGuru proposes that the teaching of English be focused on communication and not through examinations in Standard 1,” he said, adding that the evaluation of students could be done through classroom-based assessment (PBD).

The group proposed that the ministry study the effectiveness of the DLP “since some science and mathematics teachers do not fully teach these subjects in English and prefer to teach in their respective mother tongue”.

It also said the ministry should “refine” the implementation of the High Immersive Programme in line with efforts to improve the learning of English. - FMT