Dr Annuar Rapaee
AN online portal recently reported teachers and Malay advocacy groups were against the government’s plan to bring back PPSMI – Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English – to improve students’ command of English as a lingua franca.
The policy was scrapped in 2012 following strong protests.
The National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) fired another salvo by insisting that PPSMI was not the remedy to students’ lack of proficiency in the English language.
thesundaypost recently sat down with Assistant Minister of Education and Technological Research Dr Annuar Rapaee for his views on the issue.
Q: Can you share your views on PPSMI?
A: Well, to start with, PPSMI is actually not new as it was carried out during the time of the fourth (and now seventh) Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad back in July, 2002. The government at that time had agreed to the teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics in English in stages.
PPSMI was fully implemented in all primary and secondary schools nationwide by 2008. However, when Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was the Education Minister – in 2009 – a decision was made to no longer use English in the teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics. Then, by 2012 – the policy was totally scrapped with the last cohort in 2014.
Q: When will the Sarawak government implement the teaching Science and Mathematics in English?
A: In fact, upon the Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik’s proposal to Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg to make Sarawak the first state in Malaysia to use the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English early this year, our Chief Minister had agreed to implement the programme.
Q: Is it going to be difficult for Sarawak to implement?
A: In all honesty, it will not be that difficult in terms of people’s acceptance. This is because Sarawak has been described as the melting pot of Malaysia. We, Sarawakians, have never regarded the issue of using English as a racial issue. We also never regard it as an issue that will diminish our patriotism or identity as Malaysians.
That was why during the time of Tok Nan (the late Pehin Sri Adenan Satem), he had announced English as the second official language in Sarawak in accordance with Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63). In this regard, implementing the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English is not an issue.
I think because of that reason, our Chief Minister had agreed for us to implement the programme. After a few rounds of discussions and meetings with the Ministry of Education (MoE), we agreed to have the first cohort of teaching of Science and Mathematics in English for Year 1 pupils only from 2020 onwards.
Although we encourage schools to implement this programme, Chinese schools have voiced they would not want to follow. They have a choice as this is a programme, not a policy. It is a programme proposed by MoE to state government – that’s why we agree.
Q: How is the Sarawak government going to implement this?
A: This implementation is actually a great challenge to us because we don’t want it to fail like what happened to PPMSI previously. In other words, we want to move forward so that this programme can be successful. Therefore, we have to learn what were the mistakes made during PPSMI implementation.
Previously, one of the reasons might be that teachers were not well prepared for PPSMI’s implementation. Due to that, only eight per cent of teachers at that time were confident about the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English. Many teachers were still not well-versed in English to teach these two technical subjects then.
This is also our worry. That’s why we want to start it at the lower level first – Primary 1. We don’t want to rush – that was the mistake with PPSMI. They started it in both primary and secondary levels.
Also, we will train 2,835 teachers and officers through the Institute of Teacher Education (IPG), involving 212 lecturers for this purpose. The estimated costs, including training, preparation of teaching modules, printing of textbooks, workbooks, teaching materials/aid, as well as training of trainers is RM11 million.
The duration of the course will be two weeks per teacher and officer.
Additionally, we will cover 1,052 out of 1,265 primary schools statewide. We must also be aware that, at the moment, the teaching of English for Year 1 and 2 is 160 hours per year whereas for Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (vernacular school) it’s 80 hours.
The teaching of Mathematics is 96 hours, while that of Science is 46 hours for lower primary pupils. We must also understand the teaching of these two subjects does not solely focus on the result of improving the proficiency of school children in English. We do agree the approach is unable to improve proficiency that well if we solely depend on the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English to improve proficiency – we know that.
We are teaching these subjects in English because we know all the knowledge of Science is in English. Information and knowledge that the pupils need to acquire, or source is in English. Therefore, if they are not well-versed in these two subjects, they will not be able to cope with the advancement in technology.
We do agree that to improve proficiency in English, we must emphasise a lot on English subjects. This we hope will run concurrently where there is also an increase in the teaching of English subjects rather than solely depending on teaching of Science and Mathematics to improve proficiency in English.
We know about this, so don’t get us wrong that this teaching of Science and Mathematics in English is to solely improve proficiency in the language. It’s not that, but more importantly, it’s to prepare our younger generation so that they are well-versed in all terminologies of technological advancement which are mainly English so that we won’t have a problem in future and get left behind.
Q: Will rural pupils have problems compared with their urban counterparts due to run down schools in rural areas?
A: The problem with rural schools is not mainly due to their dilapidated conditions. It is also because there is a lot of mismatch. In other words, teachers who stand as options to teach these subjects are not available. So, this also needs to be improved so that option teachers are available to rural schools.
Only then will there be improvement in the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English. Without that option being fulfilled, even without dilapidated schools, the situation might not improve as a whole, even though I agree one of the factors rural students are behind is the poor conditions of the schools.
In short, the sum of these factors is conditions of the schools, mismatch, and non-availability of option teachers.
I urge the MoE to reconsider the policy of sending teachers to low enrolment schools, based on the number of classrooms. It should, instead, be based on the needs of a subject.
To give an example, if there are only a few classes in a school, a certain number of teachers are to be sent there. If this is the case, there might not be enough teachers to teach Science and Mathematics in that school. That’s one of the reasons rural schools are less fortunate.
It should not be based on the number of classrooms. Sending the number of teachers to a particular school will have to be based on everybody’s rights to be given a proper education. To me, this policy does not address that fundamental right – that school children should be given proper education.
Q: Do you think this programme will narrow the gap between urban and rural school children?
A: We know the results of rural pupils are not as good their urban counterparts. I don’t agree introducing this programme will further compound the situation because I think pupils will be able to cope – whatever language we use – if there’s proper teaching and the teachers are committed.
But if we don’t implement this programme, the gap will drift further apart since urban pupils have all the opportunities to learn in private schools. Furthermore, they are good in English because of their social mixing whereas all these conditions are not present in rural schools.
So, if we don’t introduce this programme to rural school children, that will be the main causative factor for the widening gap.
In other words, we’re preparing rural school children to be on par with those in urban areas by providing them with a level playing field.
Another reason why we have to introduce this programme to rural students is that the state government has agreed to build five international schools where the medium of instruction will be in English.
These private international schools will take in rural students. Hence, we will enrol more rural students to these schools to prepare them for International General Certificate of Secondary Education and Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM).
So, if we don’t start teaching Science and Mathematics in English in rural areas, it will defeat the purpose of building these five international schools which are meant to help rural students improve in these two subjects, taught in English.
Therefore, the establishment of these international schools is in line with the programme of teaching of Science and Mathematics in English despite people being sceptical of the performance of rural students.
Q: Where do you get your budget from to implement this programme?
A: We know the budget for such an implementation is huge. But of course, whatever investment you want to make for education is not always cheap. We should not be thinking about ringgit and sen now but the long-term return of investment in human capital. We had a meeting with the federal government but unfortunately, they don’t have the budget for such a purpose next year. While we have to train the teachers by September or October this year, the funds are not budgeted for this year. We understand the federal government is not able to come up with RM11 million but we should thank our Chief Minister, who had actually approved at the state cabinet meeting that this sum would be taken care of by the state government for this year’s training, buying materials, textbooks, and so on.
But it’s our hope that from next year onwards, whatever costs incurred by this programme, will be taken care of by MoE. I’m also very happy our Prime Minister has said he actually wants this programme to be implemented.
I’ve also come to understand there were several state governments actually wishing for this programme to be implemented in their respective states but because of the funding constraints faced by the federal government, they were not able to do so.
Therefore, we’re lucky because our state government is more than willing to come up with our own budget to run this programme. I think our Chief Minister is far-sighted on this issue and he also thinks it’s a very important investment for the future of Sarawakians.
Q: How will the programme be monitored?
A: I think there must be a certain mechanism because we don’t want teachers teaching these subjects in English to eventually revert to Bahasa Melayu.
In this regard, I think it’s most important to get the help of headmasters to ensure that Science and Mathematics are being taught in English. This requires us to find a way to monitor because previously, one of causes of PPSMI’s failure was that only 8 per cent of the teachers were confident in teaching Science and Mathematics in English, while 58 per cent were not using English to teach these two subjects.
But, not to worry much because we don’t start this programme from Primary 1 and all the way up to Primary 6. We start from Primary 1 only. So, we can always see and note our weaknesses from a small cohort of pupils. Moreover, we can also train the teachers and increase their numbers each year.
Q: Are there concerns among parents on the implementation of the programme next year?
A: I’m glad they’re concerned and not against it due to political influence. They’re not viewing it from the perspective that for Malaysians, these two subjects have to be taught in BM only.
I’m glad they’re instead concerned about whether their children will perform well in these two subjects when they are taught in English. But I’m sure at this young age, whatever language is taught them, their ability to absorb the knowledge is very high. Most importantly, of course, is for parents to give strong cooperation to teachers. The pivotal players are the teachers and the schools.
That aside, I happened to come across a news article recently where Temenggong Dato Vincent Lau suggested the medium of instruction should be in the pupils’ mother tongue. We do agree with some the statements from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) that teaching of certain subjects is best in the mother tongue.
But you must understand there so many ethnic groups in Sarawak. So I don’t think we can use the mother tongue of each ethnic group to teach these two subjects. Take the example of the pupils from one ethnic community. Do you mean we have to use their mother tongue to teach them the two subjects? What about the other ethnic communities? We can’t generalise it in that manner because it’s illogical to me – using the mother tongues of so many diverse indigenous groups to teach the two subjects.
We cannot compare with more advanced countries such as France, China, Japan, and Korea where they use their mother tongue in the teaching and learning. These countries have a long history of civilisation. Now, if we were to follow them, we would have to go through a long history of civilisation as well. But the longer we wait, the further we will fall behind others.
While it may be true that the teaching of Science and Mathematics is good in the mother tongue, practically, it is not workable. I don’t totally disagree with it. But if the Chinese schools prefer using their own mother tongue to teach Science and Mathematics, they have the option to do so as this is a programme, not a policy.
Q: What is the state government’s future plan with regards to this programme?
A: This programme will definitely be extended to other levels of primary school gradually. For example, next year, we will start with Primary 1, and year after next, it will be Primary 1 and 2, and so on. Over time, we will cover right up to Primary 6.