<div dir="ltr"><div style="left: -99999px;">English language policy
affects all
3 February 2017 @ 9:27 AM
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Sha<br>re
3<br> The English language policy in Malaysia is interesting.
In the early years of independence, the English language was spoken by
British expatriates and Malay aristocrats.
With the establishment of English schools — such as Penang Free School,
Victoria Institution and King Edward’s College — the English language
was considered one step higher than Malay, Tamil, Cantonese.
Those who had an English education background could further their
studies overseas and secure a government position.
But, the socio-cultural condition in the early years of independence
changed due to the May 13, 1969, race riots. This forced the government
to declare a state of emergency
To ease the racial tension that caused the incident, the government
adopted policies to make sure a similar incident would not recur.
In the case of the language policy, the government implemented the
National Language Act to uphold Bahasa Malaysia as the national language
to nurture unity among the races.
Bahasa Malaysia is taught in every school and this has an effect on the
English language, which has lost its importance to Bahasa Malaysia.
In 1991, the government realised the importance of the English language
policy, when the prime minister launched Vision 2020.
In other words, by 2020, Malaysia will become a developed nation.
Every sector was boosted to meet the developed-nation standard.
At this time, the empowerment of the English language was seen as
important for the government, since most developed countries used
English as the medium for communication, business and in trade
negotiations.
To boost the English language, the government, through the Education
Ministry, drafted several policies, including the Teaching and Learning
of Science and Mathematics in English.
After years of negotiation, the English-medium education policy was
introduced in 2003.
This policy had a mixed reaction from students and parents.
There were students who did well under the policy, but there were also
others who had difficulty coping with English and they were mostly from
rural areas.
In 2012, the Education Ministry phased out this policy and the teaching
and learning of Science and Mathematics were reverted to Bahasa
Malaysia.
The same situation happened to another policy, when the ministry
postponed English language as a compulsory-pass policy.
This caused a stir among the public, language activists,
non-governmental organisations and English-educated parents.
The ministry must apply concrete action to every policy.
Discussions and negotiations must play an important role, and every
stakeholder must be included in
every policy that will be implemented.
The English language policy is considered a public policy and the
implementation will leave an impact on stakeholders.
Such a policy requires a lot of money.
If the policy doesn’t cater to the need of stakeholders and does not
benefit people, it will be a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Nasrul Rahman Ghazali
Kajang, Selngor<br><br> Read More : <a href="http://www.nst.com.my/news/2017/02/209183/english-language-policy-affects-all">http://www.nst.com.my/news/2017/02/209183/english-language-policy-affects-all</a></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<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/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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