Students suffer as Govt delays decision

THE Education Ministry will make a decision on the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English within six months (The Star, May 24).

This will take us to November 2009. It means that change, if any, will only be introduced from the 2010 school year.

Apparently, the ministry wants more feedback. It really boggles me as to which truly concerned bodies/parties/organisations that have yet to voice their opinions on the policy, given that one whole year has already been allocated for the said purposes.

Earlier in the year, the ministry announced that it had readied a comprehensive report based on months of deliberations. The report proposed seven options for adoption. One of them recommended a total reversal of the policy.

The report, in the form of a memorandum, was to be circulated to all Cabinet members for a final decision.

The decision sought was said to be not necessarily just a single option but rather a combination of any of the seven options proposed. What has become of that initiative?

One obvious backlash of the delay in decision making is the negative effect it has in classroom teaching in all schools. The teaching medium has become a kind of free-for-all now.

In primary schools, we hear of national school teachers going back to teaching in Malay and vernacular school teachers doing the same in Chinese or Tamil. In secondary schools, it is a mixture of English and Malay. Only teachers proficient in English choose to continue teaching in English.

I am afraid the stalemate in the last one year has set back much of the hard-earned progress we made in the past six years.

The ministry must seriously take note of this development. A decision has to be made and made soon as the clock is ticking and our children and their concerned parents are eagerly waiting.

Perhaps, the ministry is trying too hard to arrive at the right solution, one that can please all parties.

Months of deliberations have made one thing clear. There can be no single, agreed right solution.

We can continue to argue and debate until the cow comes home, but there will still be no agreement on one right solution that would please all or even most parties.

I would like to think that it is the right of the ministry to make that final decision, and back it up with a forceful rationale before presenting it to the Cabinet for approval.