<div dir="ltr"><div style id="stcpDiv"><div class=""><h2 class="" style="border:medium none">Language flip-flops took toll on students and country, report suggests</h2>
<p class="" style="margin-left:3px"><span class="">December 11, 2013</span></p>
<div class="" style>
<ins style="display:inline-table;border:medium none;height:90px;margin:0px;padding:0px;width:728px;background-color:transparent"><ins id="aswift_0_anchor" style="display:block;border:medium none;height:90px;margin:0px;padding:0px;width:728px;background-color:transparent"></ins></ins>
</div>
</div>
<div class="" style="margin-top:8px">
<div class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br></div>
<div class="">
<div id="div-gpt-ad-1372880913597-16" style="width:160px;height:600px">
</div>
</div><br></div><div class="">
<p>
<span class="" style="width:600px"><img alt="This picture taken on September 22, 2011 shows students waiting at their long house for transport to school in Sungai Asap, Sarawak. — AFP pic" src="http://www.themalaymailonline.com/uploads/articlesmalaysia_school_2110_600_400_100.jpg" height="400" width="600"><span class="">This
picture taken on September 22, 2011 shows students waiting at their
long house for transport to school in Sungai Asap, Sarawak. — AFP pic</span></span>KUALA
LUMPUR, Dec 11 — Repeated tinkering with the medium of instruction in
schools may have hurt both the performance of Malaysian students and
race relations in the country, according to a report by the World Bank.</p>
<p>
While the switch from English to Bahasa Malaysia in schools 1970 had
only a marginally positive effect that was limited to Malay students, it
came at the price of racial polarisation and a continued decline in the
command of English in the country, it said as part of its “Malaysia
Economic Monitor: High Performing Education” report.</p>
<p>
“The 1970 change in the medium of instruction from English to Bahasa
Malaysia may have improved educational and labour market outcomes for
ethnic Malays,” it said in the report.</p>
<p>
The policy, it noted, increased the likelihood of students from the
community completing education to both secondary and tertiary levels,
which in turn raised their wage levels by 5.7 per cent.</p>
<p>
“The impact for the other ethnic groups was minimal.”</p>
<p>
The switch was largely credited to the Razak Report authored by the
country’s second prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, which had
proposed for a more Malaysian-centric national school system.</p>
<p>
The World Bank report is also surmised that this change was responsible
for the lower number of English-proficient teachers now available, as
those born after 1963 would not have benefitted from added exposure to
the language in national schools.</p>
<p>
“Proficiency in the English language among English-language teachers is
very low, and it is particularly low among English-language teachers at
primary schools.</p>
<p>
“Overall, a mere 25 per cent of these English teachers in primary
school were actually proficient in the language, and hence did not need
any further training to improve their skills in the English language. At
the secondary level, this fraction rose to 51 per cent of teachers,”
the reported said.</p>
<p>
But another outcome of the Razak Report was the formalisation of the
“national” schools that taught in the Malay language, and
“national-type” schools that conducted vernacular education.</p>
<p>
The report theorised that this policy may be responsible for the “greater ethnic stratification” experience by the country.</p>
<p>
Culled from an external study, a chart in the World Bank report
asserted that racial composition in English-medium schools prior to the
1970 change-over was more diverse than it is today, with an attendance
that was 43.1 per cent Chinese, 34.6 per cent Malay, 16.4 per cent
Indian, and with the remaining 5.9 per cent coming from other
ethnicities.</p>
<p>
“With respect to ethnic diversity, Yong (2013) argues that the change
in language of instruction has contributed to the limited diversity in
today’s primary schools,” it said, but acknowledged that the composition
was not reflective of the country’s overall race profile then.</p>
<p>
Controversially, the report also suggested that the Policy of Teaching
Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI), which had been introduced in
2003 and discontinued seven years later, was contributory to Malaysia’s
decline in at least one international education benchmark.</p>
<p>
The World Bank noted that Malaysia’s learning outcomes in the Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) were above the
international average between 1999 and 2003, but declined sharply in
2007<span class="" style="width:600px"><img alt="" src="http://www.themalaymailonline.com/uploads/articlespisa2012_600_387_100.jpg" height="387" width="600"><span class=""></span></span> and further in 2011, coinciding with the policy.</p>
<p>
“As implemented, the 2003 change in language of instruction from Bahasa
Malaysia to English for Science and Mathematics may have contributed to
the decline in learning outcomes as measured in the TIMSS,” read the
report.</p>
<p>
“Although overall performance may have deteriorated for a number of
reasons, a comparison with similar countries suggests that the policy
may have played a role.”</p>
<p>
English-language lobbyist such as the Parents Action Group for
Education (PAGE) continue to push for the return of— or at least the
option for parents to choose — the discontinued policy that they contend
was needed to improve the mastery of English as well as technical
subjects.</p>
<p>
The Education Ministry recently made it mandatory for students sitting
for the SPM to pass the English language examination beginning 2016.</p>
<p>
The World Bank in its report also appeared to caution against further changes to the language policy in schools.</p>
<p>
“[Given] that the Government has already made a policy decision in 2012
to revert to teaching Science and Mathematics in Bahasa Malaysia, it
would likely be most productive to concentrate efforts on improving the
quality of teaching English as a second language.”</p></div> - See more
at:
<a href="http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/language-flip-flops-took-toll-on-students-and-country-report-suggests#sthash.KG62SBNr.dpuf">http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/language-flip-flops-took-toll-on-students-and-country-report-suggests#sthash.KG62SBNr.dpuf</a></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>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, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br>
<br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************
</div>