Malaysia: PTAs' action plan to support 'English policy'

[Harold Schiffman]

PTAs' action plan to support 'English policy'

 KUALA LUMPUR: As the debate on the teaching of Mathematics and Science in
English continues, the Parent-Teacher Association of SK Bukit Damansara is
getting the support of other schools to maintain the current policy.
 About 50 representatives from PTAs in the Federal Territory and Selangor
met yesterday at the school to formulate an action plan for schools which
are supportive of the teaching of both subjects in English.

The meeting followed last week's meeting on the issue,

The objective is to appeal to the Education Minister to maintain the current
policy. Should the government decide to revert to the national language,
then exemptions should be given to schools which are interested in teaching
Science and Mathematics in English.

"We were quite surprised that some rural schools were supportive of our
objective, as they wanted their students to be exposed to English," said SK
Bukit Damansara PTA vice-chairman Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim.
She said parents from these schools were concerned that their children would
not be exposed or able to practise the language as they lacked the resources
and were weak in English themselves.

"We have succeeded in garnering support from schools in Kuala Lumpur and
Selangor and our next step would be to get support from schools across the
country," said Noor Azimah.

Director-general of Education Datuk Alimuddin Mohd Dom said recently that
the results of this year's 518,616 Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah
candidates would be one of the factors that would decide whether the policy
would be continued.

English is used in the teaching of the two subjects from Year One to Year
Six at primary level and from Form One to Form Five at secondary level.

The PTA of SK Bukit Damansara has also formed the Parents' Action Group for
Education 2008 (Page) as a platform for parents to express their views on
their children's education.

"With Page, parents would have a united platform where they can air their
views on policies that concern their children's education," said SK Bukit
Damansara PTA committee member Roz Mawar Zain.

She said PTAs and parents who are interested in being members are urged to
channel their interests to scienceandmath at skbd.edu.my.

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/National/2355652/Article/index_html
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its
members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or
sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree
with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20080922/7c0418fd/attachment.htm>