Ministry urged to reprimand publishers over mistakes in workbooks

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Voon speaks during a press conference. At right is state PKR women chief Nurhanim Hanna Mokhsen.

Voon speaks during a press conference. At right is state PKR women chief Nurhanim Hanna Mokhsen.

KUCHING: The Education Ministry is urged to give stern warning or reprimand the publishers of school workbooks riddled with mistakes.

PKR Women national vice-president Voon Shiak Ni in making the call, said it was embarrassing to find ugly mistakes in the school workbooks that would be the learning materials for students.

“It’s embarrassing to read news report yesterday (Wednesday) that grave mistakes were picked up in the Primary 1 Mathematics workbook under the Dual Language Programme (DLP). A picture of the workbook was sent to me by a concerned parent yesterday.

“The mistakes made in the workbook concern vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar. For example, ‘berus gigi’ in Bahasa Malaysia was translated as ‘teeth brush’ and ‘kumbang lebih 8 daripada anjing’ in Bahasa Malaysia was translated as ‘Ladybug more 8 than dogs’,” Voon told a press conference here yesterday.

Voon, who is also PKR Stampin branch vice chairperson, tried to check the book in the market and was told that the stock had arrived in Kuching.

“The reason I brought up this issue today is because I don’t see the Education Ministry taking any concrete action to address the issue. Mistakes of such nature have been happening for the past two years and were also highlighted in the media.”

She said in 2015 there were serious mistakes found in several Science and Mathematics workbooks prescribed for students preparing for public examinations in the country that made embarrassing headlines in the media.

“Calls were then made for the beefing up of proficiency in the English language.

“The then deputy education minister P Kamalanathan said the problem stemmed from the publishers and that many of these private publications did not come under the purview of the Education Ministry.

“It was noted that these mistakes were made as a result of the direct translation of words from Bahasa Malaysia. The then deputy prime minister and education minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was also quoted as saying

that he was baffled with the deterioration in the proficiency of English and that ‘something is not right’.”

Voon said she was not only disappointed but worried as to why the Education Ministry did not take the matter seriously all this while.

“Was there any actions taken by the Education Ministry to reprimand the publishers over the mistakes highlighted in the previous years?”

She said the people expected improvements and action plan to correct the flaws in the system after the mistakes were highlighted, not only for the ministry to express frustration in the media and start finger-pointing.

“Whatever concerns education should be addressed by the ministry.”

Voon also said the concerns raised by parents and teachers over the mistakes were to enable the Education Ministry to take necessary actions to address the issue and not just to comment and give opinions.