Malaysian parents should force Malaysian government to reintroduce PPSMI

May 14, 2012

I refer to the article entitled ‘Putrajaya scraps local student quota in International Schools’ in the Malaysian Insider. It made me happy, flabbergasted and sad at the same time.

Happy because now more Malaysians have access to an education conducted predominantly in the language of their choice – Bahasa Malaysia in SK, Tamil and Mandarin in SJK and now fully English at International schools.

However, it is was a sad day for many parents like me who live in Petaling Jaya surrounded by such schools, simply because we are unable to afford the fees. For others in smaller towns and kampungs, there are no such schools available!

For the past three years, I have written many letters to both online and printed media, worked closely with an education NGO (PAGE) in appealing to our leaders, hoping to make PPSMI permanently available in addition to MBMMBI in national schools.

We only succeeded in getting from the authorities a little concession – to allow pupils who started with PPSMI to continue until the end of their school year. Standard 1 and 2 pupils as well as those younger ones entering schools do not have any choice.

We had a difficult time and endured much frustration in seeking for teaching and learning of just these two subjects in English. We were given excuses by Education Minister, his deputies and ministry officials and were even labeled “unpatriotic” by some NGOs opposing PPSMI.

But all of a sudden now, full English Medium Schools in the form of International Schools are available to a select few lucky Malaysians. With this, many of the reasons given against PPSMI have now proven to be mere lame excuses!

I believe that most of our political leaders were and are aware of the advantages of at least PPSMI, if not full English Medium Schools. Hence, I hope this is just the first step undertaken by our government towards introducing English Medium schools as reported recently.

The rakyat must demand that this choice is also available soonest possible to all of us throughout the country. Allow English Medium Schools alongside SK and SJK soonest possible. At the very least, allow PPSMI and MBMMBI to go on indefinitely, giving both sides a choice.

Otherwise, the main beneficiary of this decision appears to be the children of our leaders and politicians who for obvious reasons have chosen not to speak out in support of PPSMI ever since the decision to abolish it was decided in 2009.