PPSMI (Pt. 2)

Hot topic these days especially with the new school year coming up.

Well, the final roundtable meeting has ended and according to the Deputy Education Minister, all views and opinions will be compiled and handed to the cabinet to decide. (Now what about that BN meeting in which the matter is supposed to be brought up to - according to the Education Minister, no less :-P).

As NST has it, the ministry detailed seven options based on hundreds of different views and comments made so far. (Yes, not two, not three but seven! Gosh, how is the cabinet going to make the decision then ?)

- A continuation of the policy -- teaching Science and Mathematics in English at all school levels.

- The two subjects taught in English at secondary schools, and in the mother tongue (Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin or Tamil) at primary level.

- The two subjects taught in English at secondary schools and Years Four, Five and Six (Level Two) at the primary level. Primary pupils in Years One till Three (Level One) will learn the two subjects in their mother tongue.

- A complete reversal -- Science and Mathematics at the primary level will be taught in the mother tongue, and then taught in Bahasa Malaysia at the secondary level.

- The teaching of the two subjects in the language determined by respective schools, whether in English or the mother tongue.

- The two subjects will be taught in the mother tongue at Level One in primary schools, and in both English and the mother tongue at Level Two. The English policy will only be implemented fully in secondary schools.

- Science not taught at Level One in primary schools, but its contents integrated in other subjects.

BIG headache --- lotsa people are not gonna be happy, no matter what decision it's gonna be.

Btw, here's the results for the polls conducted by ntv7 news yesterday (16th Dec).

• Edisi 7 (7 pm) : Bahasa pengantar yang patut digunakan untuk mengajar Sains dan Matematik
  BI : 42% BM : 58%
  

• English News (8 pm) : Should Science and Maths continued to be taught in English ? (Note : As expected, the viewers wanted the policy to continue but I didn't expect such a whopping majority)
  Yes : 90% No : 10%

For more news and views, see Google :-)

Updates on PPSMI

According to the New Straits Times, the final meeting on the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English will be held tomorrow (16th Dec) the Putrajaya International Convention Centre with more than 200 politicians, academics and representatives of non-governmental organisations and parent-teacher associations attending it to discuss the pros and cons of it. Why do we need politicians here, anyways ?

Interesting to note that representatives of the Australian Qualification and Standard Assessment Body will also be attending the meeting. Huh ? Why do we need foreign expertise to plan the future of our education system ? And why those from Australia ? Why not Finland - which I heard has been hailed as having one of the best education system in the world ?

Whatever it is, you can be sure that the Ministry of Education is having a BIG headache over this matter as apparently they've been getting all kinds of different feed backs from different quarters. As for me, I'll be happy to see the continuation of PPSMI since it'll mean more allowance for me - hehe :-D Okay, seriously speaking, I don't mind either way but I really hope that the government will truly take into consideration of the students who are not proficient enough in English to enable them to study Maths and Science in English. If they're serious about improving the standard of English among Malaysian students, there need to be a revamp in the ways of teaching English itself and not impose it via those two subjects.

PPSMI (Pt. 1)

Since I'm directly affected with this policy, what the Education Minister has to say about it would surely interest me. And after reading The Star today (14th Dec), it's interesting to note that he's apparently aware of the real situation - at least that's the impression I got from the interview.

It's a bit too long to put the whole thing here but here's something that interests me.

Even the late Tan Sri Abdul Rafie Mahat, who was then the director-general of education in charge of implementing the change in policy faced much opposition amidst the hasty implementation to the policy, describing the task as “seven months of hard work”.

I remember that it was just a short period between the time the policy was announced and the implementation of it. But seven months ??? It was definitely a rush job. The teachers weren't ready and the same goes for the students. I don't think the parents were ready for it either. So, who was really ready for it ?

The least the ministry could do was to train the teachers properly before implementing it. I 'understand' that certain quarters didn't believe in "wasting the time" but what good would it do if the majority of those affected with the policy were still in the dark about it ? They'd still be wasting their time teaching and learning lessons that they couldn't get a grasp at.

The interview also answered one burning question of mine - who were involved in the roundtable discussions ?

Professionals in education including researchers from our public universities were invited for the first roundtable.

The second roundtable was attended by representatives from associations and organisations, professional bodies, corporate, community leaders, parent-teacher associations and interested individuals. Students, teachers and lecturers from matriculation colleges and teacher training institutes attended the third session while politicians attended the fourth. We also held a special meeting with representatives from the teachers’ unions and associations.

Errm, did anyone think about asking the primary and secondary school students too ? After all, they are the ones whose future is going to be affected by the policy.

But here's something that perplexed me.

Q : Will it be in your new year address?

A : It depends on when we can table it to Cabinet and whether they are happy about it. Then we have to bring it up to the Barisan Nasional meeting.

When the policy was first raised previously, it was at the political level (Dr Mahathir announced the proposal made by the party’s supreme council in 2002).

Why must it (I assume 'it' here refers to "the new year address") be brought up to the BN meeting ? To get the party's approval ?

Landslide Tragedy at Bukit Antarabangsa (Pt. 3)

TV9 on their morning talk show "Nasi Lemak Kopi-O" had 4 residents of BA as their guests yesterday (12th Dec) - one man and his wife plus two other women.

While I truly symphatise with their plight, I can't help but feel a bit irate especially by the man's 'whines'. Okay, so he's a victim and he has to look after 10 members of his family including his 90-year-old mother-in-law, his home is gone and he's admitted to feeling rather emotional over all this. But when he mentioned about them being entitled to only 50% discount of the hotel rate etc which he felt was not enough as he apparently needed 5 rooms to accomodate his family members. Oh, come on! For 11 family members (3 males and 8 females), three rooms should be probably be enough. Or maybe at most, four. Like someone commented the other day, 'The world doesn't revolve around you. Grow up.' Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh but it quite echoes my sentiment. There are other people facing unfortunate plights in this country - ie flood victims etc. Think about it.

Back to the Past, Please.

The Education Minister said that the ministry is going to "carefully study the facts and information to be entered into history textbooks to instill patriotism among the young generation."

I'm wondering what changes they are going to make to the syllabus. As of now, I'm very perplexed with the contents of the subject. The subject is only introduced in secondary school, starting from Form 1 - and the students get it in bulk. Yeah, all the details about Malaysian history in lower secondary and wham! Suddenly they come face to face with 'world history' as they step up to upper secondary. Have the students been getting any basic on the world history anytime earlier in their school years ? I don't think so.

What the ministry should do, immho (of course ;-)), is to go back to what was done in the past. Start teaching history (Malaysia plus world and all) in primary school but start from the basic. Durng my time, we were taught about world civilisation etc but only the basic stuff. I knew about the 7 wonders of the world back then, GenghisKhan, Alexander The Great, to name a few. Then we progressed to the more detailed stuff of what he had learned earlier on. By the time we got to higher level, learning History wasn't that difficult (at least for yours truly).

Landslide Tragedy at Bukit Antarabangsa (Pt. 2)

As expected, the tragedy is still making headlines on the local news and talk shows. (Uh, I missed Prof Agus's "Hujah" on Monday - wonder if he'd discussed about it then). Now they're saying that the residents are suing the authorities for not doing the job properly. I'd say, go ahead and do it. It's your right, after all.

But should they be compensated by the government ? There have been a number of polls conducted on ntv7 and TV3 news lately. Haven't been able to catch up with the results except for the one on ntv7 8 o'clock news on Tuesday nite, if I'm not mistaken, asking whether the residents of BA should be compensated - the results : 53% Yes, 47% No ... btw, I'm with the "No", not that I sent my vote, though).

Hmm ... I need to post links to various news articles regarding this issue - I bet one day I'm gonna need to refer to 'em again .. especially when another landslide occurs in the future. :-P

Landslide Tragedy at Bukit Antarabangsa (Pt. 1)

Call me cold-hearted but I wasn't that much suprised when I first heard the news about it over RTM1 on that Saturday morning. Simply because it's a tragedy waiting to happen. The authorities definitely didn't learn from previous tragedy like the Highland Towers 15 years ago and others that have happened before. And why on earth would you risk living at the hillside area ? Is it for prestige ? Is it the view ? Is it the name "Bukit Antarabangsa" ? Or is it the land value ? Is it worth it all just to have it end up like this ? The pix say it all (credit to The Star newspaper)






Watch video here

It's NOT over yet

Just as I thought ... the rainy season is not over yet. (Second round of main air bah, anyone ? :-P)

Anyway, based on the warnings by DID (The Department of Irrigation and Drainage), heavy rain is expected over the weekend and the flood could be back by Sunday. Uh-oh ... we definitely hafta go back to Kelate on Saturday!

So you guys and gals out there, stay safe and for latest info, go to DID site here ;-)

Is it over yet ?

Looks like the flood situation in the East Coast is improving though The Star's saying that the number of evacuees rose up a bit. Hopefully the weather will hold up till we go back home this week. Then it can rain and rain and rain ... I do look forward to it at the end of the year. Hehe .... :-D Main air bah is one childhood memory I still cherish. And it's part of Kelantanese ritual, I suppose (I don't dare use the word 'culture' here!). And we're so tak kisah when there's flood compared to people in other parts of Malaysia. Time to 'play flood water', guys! And I was watching the 5 o'clock news on RTM1 the other day. This one cheerful makcik, when interviewed by the reporter, was saying, "Sedap dok ssini. Pagi makaey, tengahari makaey, makaey sokmo!" (Translation : Staying here is fine. We eat in the morning, in the afternoon, all the time!). Now that's positive thinking!

World AIDS Day

1st December is World AIDS Day - dedicated to raising awareness of AIDS and HIV.

Has the awareness campaign really worked all these years ? Yes, people are probably more aware of this pandemic. But why are there still so many others out there who live their lives carelessly - having sex with multiple partners, drug addicts etc ? What about the married guys who go around having sex with other women and later infecting their wives with HIV (and probably their babies too) ?

Speaking of drug addicts, whatever happens to that programme in which the government gives out free needles to drug addicts in an effort to curb needle-sharing among them ? Is it on ?