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The only language that should be compulsory should be:
1. The national language -- because its where we live.
2. English -- because a lot of education materials are published in English FIRST and it takes time to translate it.

Why Arabic? We are not Arabs. We are Malaysians. As for education materials, Arabic WAS a good medium of study because science and math was flourishing some long time ago. We should be looking and english, chinese, hindi, japaneese if this is our goal.

Even Chinese is irrelevant because the Chinese are learning English to do business with the world.

India will the hub of growth in 20 years time. Hindi anyone?

Just my opinion. Apologies in advance if I have offended anyone.

eMalaysian

You are wrong to say that Chinese is irrelevant.

Read this link if you think Chinese language is not important in the 21st century. May be so in the last 20th century.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4617646.stm

I give you the first line of the article in BBC and you click the link to read the rest:

"..An independent school has become the first in the UK to make Mandarin Chinese compulsory for pupils, reflecting the growing importance of China on the world stage. But it's not an easy language to master.

China used to be called a sleeping giant. Now, as the world's fastest growing major economy, it is well and truly awake.... "

The bureaucrats in the Education Ministry in Malaysia have a myopic view about education. They make policies based on personal/ religious and racial biases instead of looking at the overall long term interest of the country's future. Look at the overall education system and policies of the country in the last 30 years. Such as, the total downgrading of the English language, and then now trying to "put together a pot that had been broken in small pieces".

The rest of the world in the region had moved along exploiting their heritage of the English language due to history.

Meanwhile here in Malaysia, the politicians and the wannabes in Unmo Youth in wanting to score political points with the kampong gallery, had undo all the foundations that would have made Malaysia a better anc cleverer country than today.

Making Chinese language a compulsory language in Malaysia?

For that to happen, you need massive brain surgery and total brain transplant for the UMNO Youth leaders and the UMNO politicians in Barisan National.

As for China, they are smart. They may not like westerners, but they have made English language a compulsory subject in school and students had to pass the English language to graduate from school or the university. Even the taxi drivers in Beijing are being asked to learn the english lanaguage. They (the Chinese in China) don't have to learn Chinese, but other countries,especially those in the Asian region, will eventually have to learn Chinese,whether they like it or not.

For Malaysians,especially the Malays, only those with far sighted views for their children will learn Mandarin.These are young future Malaysians generations who will benefit the most from the global economy and the global job market.

As for the Umno Youth apparatchiks, they don't have to learn Chinese or Hindi, because they will be guaranteed a job with the Malaysian civil service eg Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam etc.

spend time to learn something that returns the best benefit to oneself.

learn English because it has the potential to reach 3 billion.

learn Mandarin because it has the potential to reach 1.5 billon in China alone.

learn Hindi because it has the potential to reach 1 billion in India.

learn arab can reach ... erm ? you go and guess ... even arabs is moving ahead to learn english

This is not the matter of learnig additional language but the issue of the quality of headmaster.

If headmaster can't interpret well a simple message from Education Ministry. So how is the student being educated in proper way all this while? Or the headmaster would like do have his own rules in his "territory"? I bet this is not the first time a headmaster "miss interpret".

Under Abdulah Ahmad Badawi, the subordinates have taken over HIS initiative on governing, hence:
*APs given out of line...
*Even after Malacca CM-launched Mat Slkodeng Squad, another govt depat next door to PM's Office tried to do the same moral-guardian-spy-voyeaur job
*Schoo heads behaving like Army Commandants
Yes, I agree witrh one commenter that if a school principal can't understand a simple department directive,, how do you expect students to learn the 3Rs?
* But Pak Lah is too kind with in-subordination, otherWISE why should Noh Omar, Hishamuddin be steal around the cabinet?
Wooden one, did I hear some1 whisper?

what is wrong with this country? you have head masters who do not understand the rule and regulations of the education ministry.They should go fo Bahasa Malaysia classes instead of imposing their believes and overzealousness on Malaysians.

B.Malaysia should be compulsory and so should be english.That will cover Malaysia and the world including India(english is the language there).Chinese should be an option for those non Chinese who want to learn the language. It is good for the country and a competititive advantage for the individual.

Sure teach arabic for the muslim students. And the tamil language should be also an option. But please don't force things down the students throat cos some freaking head master either doesn't understand the rules or thinks he can do whatever he wants based on his beliefs.

My dad used to work for the Ministry of Education, some 10 years ago. He told me that our Education system is in such a mess because a lot of times, policies and programs are implemented without proper study or planning - in many cases things are done for no other reason but simply to appease the political wind du jour of the minister in charge.

It appears to me, then, that this is still the case today.

The curriculum has become so convoluted, with non-core subjects being made into compulsory exam subjects (Moral studies a case in point). The rote-digest-regurgitate education environment is further made worse when political pressure trickles down to become unnecessary burdens on students and teachers. I left school in 1981, and it seems things have gotten worse over the years.

It's high time education be given the priority and focus that it deserves, and not be made the political playground that it has become over the last 2 decades - if there were any area where our future is at risk, it's in how the education arena is being abused for political mileage.

English allows us to interact with the rest of the world including China and India. Like said, taxi drivers in china knows English …

Yes, learning Mandarin has advantage. So is learning Hindi, Arabic, Japanese, Italian, etc.

The point is make malay/english compulsory. Let students choose to learn a 3rd language for their own reasons, whatever that is.

Besides, it takes a year or maybe less to learn practical usage of a language if we really want to. It’s not hard.

No surprise here..

Given that we have willing volunteers like the now deceased pyrotechnic in Indonesia, and the other guy who planned to join the flying mullah circus for a one way tour of LA, some elements within the establishment are trying to promote Arabic to ensure better communication between the cave-dwelling leadership in Afghanistan and our overzealous local village idiots.

Actually, i wouldn't mind allowing my kids to learn an extra language in school ,be it Arabic,Armenian or even Algerian.My problem is if i allow that now,would it stop here or would they ask my kids to wear a Tuareg headgear and ride a camel to school?

Some headmasters were just too peeved that their favourite Jawi newspaper the Utusan Melayu was closed down because of poor readership. So to do a Lazarus resurrection, drastic measures within their means must be imposed. If you can read Arabic, Jawi is no problem. Because the Non-Bumis were scoring distinctions in Bahasa Melayu, so it's time to bring back Malay language in Jawi to accord natural advantage to Muslims. More and more national type schools are putting up slogans and signages in Jawi. So all students should be literate in Jawi. That's why it is necessary to learn Arabic and you will get to appreaciate classical Arabic of the Koran and you might be enlightened and be one with the Almighty. Constitutionally only Malay in romanised form or rumi is compulsory but since the alphabets might not be kosher, to make sure of further merits, Arabic is divine.

Since, we are on the subject on education …

Kids, when young, should concentrate on subjects that provide them the skills to discover, analyze, think, and create. These are language, math and elementary science concepts. Unfortunately, schools don’t teach essential tools like communication, analysis tools, creativity, positive thinking, teamwork, etc.

We are also teaching children to memorize and that exam results are so important. Don’t we? The ones who can memorize the most history dates, names, places, etc. and recall them in an exam is the number 1. We instill the concept of “I win, you lose” situation. Not the “win, win” concept.

In some Chinese school, I see so much homework. Children does just homework, homework, and homework and maybe the parent will also have to help the child with homework. A child has only one childhood. That childhood is the time for them to expand their minds to great ideas, to play, to mingle with society, and to learn how to learn.

Forget politics. What’s best for the child?

Just to add on,I have always emphasized and enforced the "LADIES FIRST" policy to my sons.But the Taliban Headmaster of the S.R.K Danau Kota where they school is against that and creates a "ALPHA DOMINANT MALE" enviroment for them.Be it in class, the boys in the front rows,at assemblies,boys front row,and fire drills ,boys out first again.I dont know where the headmaster gets the idea from,but its not what most of us learned during our good ol' S.R.J.K (ING) days.

I think the keyword here should be RELEVANCE.

Of what benefit would learning Arabic be, within the context of our public school system? Even if it is a non-compulsory, voluntary basis subject?

Parents or students who wish to learn Arabic are free to pursue courses of this nature outside school hours...at their own expense. Can't afford it? Too bad...in that case you have bigger problems, and priorities, that should be addressed instead of learning Arabic.

Why should tax-paying Malaysians support this nonsense in public schools?

As it is, the national curriculum has a hodge podge of irrelevant nonsense mixed in with relevant coursework. Why add another useless factor...the priority should be in fine tuning what we have first.

Thank you serpico, for being straightforward about the fear of learning arabic in school.

eMalaysia,

You are wrong. Taxi driver in China hardly speak English... If you consider broken english as english, then I have nothing to say. The world's most commonly used language is not English either.

If you think English is important, maintain your point without assuming Chinese is irrelevant.

Check around the local industry, anyone who know Chinese is a plus and can demand higher salary. Of course, it also depends on what type industry and job description. But most of the opening will welcome Chinese language as a plus.

Cheers.

What are the education ministers in Malaysian doing?

No need to learn Hindi if you go to India. English is the official language for India. They do not really have a common national language like mandarin for China. About 50% of the population are Hindi speaking but many are able to converse somewhat in that language.

I think the Malay language was orginally written in Jawi, given that the influence came first from the Middle East traders who also brought Islam with them. Perhaps someone can enlighten when the romanise form of the Malay language was created.

Actually English is the 3rd (or maybe 4th) most spoken language in the world. Here is the top 10 list:

1. Chinese ~1,200M
2. Hindi ~500M
3. English ~500M
4. Spanish ~450M
5. Arabic ~230M
6. Portugese ~210M
7. Bengali ~200M
8. Russian ~150M
9. Japanese ~130M
10. Punjabi ~110M

As Malaysia is a major trading nation, then we should refer to the our list of major trading partners to figure out the best foreign language choices.

Now bolehland is full of warlords. Municipal councils, P*RM, J*J, MoE, MoH, MoD,etc.

I'm no suprise in the near future, school children in a class will break into many factions and rulez by different small warlords.

Nothing wrong with teaching Arabic. However, there is everything wrong when Arabic is made a "compulsory" for those who do not wish to learn it.

As a commenter above noted, it should be optional, for Muslim or non-Muslim and anyone who wishes his or her child to learn the language should enrol them in the course at their own expense.

Likewise, Mandarin should NEVER be compulsory. This is because Mandarin is a very complicated language and is terribly difficult to learn for a non-native speaker, especially if they don't use it often.

By the way, there is no real reason for people to learn Mandarin to "conduct business". What rubbish. Did you or your father learn Japanese when Japan was the largest economy in the world in the 1980s? Do we also need to learn Arabic and Russian to deal with the Sheiks and the oligarchs who pretty much control the world's oil? Thats what interpreters are for.

90% of advertisements where they insist on compulsary "mandarin-speaking candidates" are racist, another way of saying "we only hire chinese, other races don't bother applying". And before anyone starts to make accusatory noises, I'm Chinese myself, and its an open secret that many employers put that tagline in the recruitment advertisement even though the job has very little to do with knowing how to speak Mandarin.

Pos Language Family Script(s) Used Speakers
(Millions) Where Spoken (Major)
1 Mandarin Sino-Tibetan Chinese Characters 1051 China, Malaysia, Taiwan
2 English Indo-European Latin 510 USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand
3 Hindi Indo-European Devanagari 490 North and Central India
4 Spanish Indo-European Latin 425 The Americas, Spain
5 Arabic Afro-Asiatic Arabic 255 Middle East, Arabia, North Africa
6 Russian Indo-European Cyrillic 254 Russia, Central Asia
7 Portuguese Indo-European Latin 218 Brazil, Portugal, Southern Africa
8 Bengali Indo-European Bengali 215 Bangladesh, Eastern India
9 Malay, Indonesian Malayo-Polynesian Latin 175 Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore
10 French Indo-European Latin 130 France, Canada, West Africa, Central Africa
11 Japanese Altaic Chinese Characters and 2 Japanese Alphabets 127 Japan
12 German Indo-European Latin 123 Germany, Austria, Central Europe
13 Farsi (Persian) Indo-European Nastaliq 110 Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia
14 Urdu Indo-European Nastaliq 104 Pakistan, India
15 Punjabi Indo-European Gurumukhi 103 Pakistan, India
16 Vietnamese Austroasiatic Based on Latin 86 Vietnam, China
17 Tamil Dravidian Tamil 78 Southern India, Sri Lanka, Malyasia
18 Wu Sino-Tibetan Chinese Characters 77 China
19 Javanese Malayo-Polynesian Javanese 76 Indonesia
20 Turkish Altaic Latin 75 Turkey, Central Asia
21 Telugu Dravidian Telugu 74 Southern India
22 Korean Altaic Hangul 72 Korean Peninsula
23 Marathi Indo-European Devanagari 71 Western India
24 Italian Indo-European Latin 61 Italy, Central Europe
25 Thai Sino-Tibetan Thai 60 Thailand, Laos
26 Cantonese Sino-Tibetan Chinese Characters 55 Southern China
27 Gujarati Indo-European Gujarati 47 Western India, Kenya
28 Polish Indo-European Latin 46 Poland, Central Europe
29 Kannada Dravidian Kannada 44 Southern India
30 Burmese Sino-Tibetan Burmese 42 Myanmar

Wouldn't it be nice if we could speak ALL the languages above?. By the way Mandarin (*Chinese is term as race/ethnic not language !) tops it all because of the higher population base on this planet earth.

Bottomline, learn the the languauge that benefits you.

Learning a new language is a wonderful thing. It should be encouraged that everyone to pick up a second, even a third language. It is an advantage that would increases their chances of getting hired, at least in US.

Nonetheless, I believe the fear is why Arabic? I dont mind learning Arabic if it is taught as a language that allows me to communicate with fellow Arabic speaking people. However, if it is taught from only the religious point of view- Quran, or other related materials only, I think such narrow approach is not the way to do it. I do understand that in Malaysia, Quran and Arabic is closely related but that shouldnt be the motivation to make it compulsory. It questions the original purpose of encouraging students to learn Arabic. What does that has to do with business? And if economy is the reason, what happen to fellow Muslim students who really want to learn more about their religion? There will be a clear conflict on the objective of learning among fellow Muslim and non-Muslim.

Despite the fact that China is growing as an economy giant, it cannot be underestimate too that Middle East and Africa is not at all useless. A lot of resources (esp oil and gas) is still in huge deposit in this area. If political stability is ensured in this region, it will be a potential to tap into.

In the US, foreign language is offered and made compulsory. However, there is a list of a few to choose from. Meanwhile, they could switch classes if they find it hard to follow, whenever situation allowed. If they dont take it during high school, they are expected to make it up during college. Although from what I see, they do not necessary reach the level to communicate effectively, that's the way they do it.

However, to say that one should learn a language because of economic reason only is a narrow-minded view. If that is true, why people bother to learn Sanskrit, Latin, or other extinct language? We should not limit the reason for people (kids especially) to pick up a language because China is growing or Russia is coming up. Let them explore. Friends, drama, manga, anime, religion, etc. Learning a language yet bypassing the cultural beauty, is a waste of time. A lot of time, people in this category will end up learning to pass the class, requirement, or to show off they know something, which is a waste of time. I will cry for the teacher.

to eMalaysian: I disagree that it takes 1 year or less to learn practical language. Some actually failed to do so. I believe it takes at least 1 year, unless you are sinking in the country yourself- which may take as lil as 6 months.

As a person picking up Japanese as fourth (maybe) language, it definitely takes me at least 1 year to learn something of significance to communicate at minimum level with native speakers. This is a 1 hr a day for 5 days class and it doesnt include the extra time taken out of class. Else, I cannot talk beyond self introduction. I cannot imagine myself progressing at this level without making Japanese friends, and practising it with them. I may not even be such confident, if not because of my 6 wks exchange student program in Japan. It really takes a lot of effort to speak at a level where people will take you seriously. There is no point learning a few phrases here and there and speak in broken manner.

Browsing thro' the comments, I am a bit disappointed that some have identified Arabic with Islam. Arabic is the language of the Arabs, some of whom are Christians. The Arabic letters are used by a number of other languages like Farsi, Urdu, Jawi, etc. Learning Arabic puts Malaysians at an advantage in many languages.

Hell, I want to read Omar Khayyam in Farsi if I could. If I knew Arabic I would be halfway there already, at least in being able to read somewhat the Persian language. And then, if I want to learn Urdu (because I could read it from my Arabic) that effort would also put me easily into Hindi (virtually same lingo with some regional variations, but with the Devanagari script). The opportunities from there are fantastic.

Don't knock down on Arabic. Learning a language is always useful, even Swahili. Jambo!

Good point Jacky... We should do some studies before linking everything with anything we can...

For all those who posted the numbers of so-and-so language speakers, it's irrelevant. Every language is important. We're not in a competition here. What should be occupying your minds more is why are students being forced to learn something that a headmaster said they must, and why the headmaster in the first place "misinterpreted" apparently very very cloudy instructions from the Ministry.

Like someone said, BM and English are a must, for purely utilitarian purposes. After that, it should be elective. Learn colloquial French or ancient Latin if you want to. Learn Cockney rhyming slang or poshy Queen's English if you want to. If you feel an interest and/or that it will benefit you later, why not? Somehow, running offtopic a little, I'm reminded of the four idiots in Perak who wanted to sue the government for teaching Maths and Science in English. If these are the little kataks under the proverbial coconut shell, no wonder our education policies back home are ineffectual.

What is more worrying is that I doubt the headmaster in question genuinely wanted his students to revel in the beauty of Arabic. As someone pointed out, Arabic is very closely related (in our country at least) to Islamic studies, and sorry to say this, but this appears to be another example of the slow Talibanisation of our country. For once our Ministry of Education got it right, just that some cuckoo headmaster got it in his head that everyone should learn Arabic. I certainly wouldn't want my children learning Arabic if it meant them being indoctrinated with Islam, similarly I wouldn't want them learning German if all they were going to read was Mein Kampf. But if they were going to read Omar Khayyam or Wolfgang Goethe, I'd definitely encourage it.

It's all about choice la. Sigh, why is this concept so hard to grasp?

There're just too many problems with this administration headed by PM A Badawi, everyday, loose cannon implements policy that creates tension among the races. Worse still, all this problems seemed to always run out of control till the very last minute when the only solution is through heavy-handedness. All these only showed that the country is ran via auto-pilot.
PM AB, your job needs a lot of toughness AND wisdom. Show to us that you have what it takes to be on top!

It's an old topic, only revived because you get the creeps that now and then someone would do something like that again with gusto (calling parents to turn up on a weekend), seemingly without checking first with the ministry or his counterparts, for that matter the headmaster of the other school.

One is just thinking how the malay pupils are going to take it. On top of BM which some are already having problems, they have to do English, and now Arabic.

When the rest of the world is moving forward to knowledge-based economies, we are here dilly-dallying about languages.

Is there time to be less than fully utilitarian about language in this day and age when we seem to have lost not only rankings but bearings and reputation in education?

Once we were the toast of the commonwealth when it came to scholars. What is it like nowadays? A 12A SPM scorer saying the US SAT papers were 'difficult'? Students going to secondary schools who are still 3R-challenged? An academia which publishes so few per-capita peer-reviewed works, depending on notes in a local language that self-fertilises knowledge to oblivion? A learning society hooked on sms sentences and cybergaming? A classroom where the teacher's handwriting is squeaky small so that the little girl now put to sit in the last row because all the boys are to sit in front cannot be expected to follow maths in class, and therefore have to take extra tuition, probably conducted by the same teacher, with both being innocent parties to a system which is trying to lighten the load but end up creating more than double the work with quadruple the reading material, poorly authored to boot, in pursuit of examination standards which are barely accepted to institutions and employers that matter.

In the light of the repeated reminders from investors, from ourselves, from people who study national rankings and competitiveness seriously, do we have the luxury of time to be less than fully utilitarian about education, and language?

How is the poor Malay student ever going to catch up with:

(a) the russians
http://tinyurl.com/e23nd

(b) the chinese
http://tinyurl.com/94bvx

or even

(c) the czechs?
http://tinyurl.com/9736u

This dialog box is too small to add the others - the indians, the italians, the brazilians, the myanmars and vietnamese.

They are all fire-breathing knowledge-chasin' dragons; what are we instead? whimpering snails?

And these small samplings are just the surface of what they all have been doing.... while the star of the commonwealth continues to twinkle into her twilight.

How is the malay boy going to grow up to be towering if his path is politicised to such an extent he has no way of surviving the journey on terms of the world?

this world, not the poignant afterlife.

To race, add religion.
To religion, add language.

Keep on adding.

We will only be burying ourselves.

As has been happening for the past 20-30 years.

Sure, one can be democratic about humanity:
http://tinyurl.com/8fd8b

and indeed, they may proffer perfumed handkerchief to those who call on them speaking their lingo:
http://tinyurl.com/bhetw

but to stand on our own, to send our people to Mars next, we must put things in the brain first, not wear smiles and hope for the best.

We need more than prayers. We need unflinching compliance with realities.

It's an old topic, only revived because you get the creeps that now and then someone would do something like that again with gusto (why else call parents to turn up on a weekend?), seemingly without checking first with the ministry or his counterparts, for that matter the headmaster of the other school.

One is just thinking how the malay pupils are going to take it. On top of BM which some are already having problems, they have to do English, and now Arabic.

When the rest of the world is moving forward to knowledge-based economies, we are here dilly-dallying about languages.

Is there time to be less than fully utilitarian about language in this day and age when we seem to have lost not only rankings but bearings and quality in education? Is our competitiveness predicated on being traders, translators, linguists even? Do we have a one-century meiji copycat advantage in national industrial and job-creating experience, add military spoils?

Once we were the toast of the commonwealth when it came to scholars. What is it like nowadays? A 12A SPM scorer saying the US SAT papers were 'difficult'? Students going to secondary schools who are still 3R-challenged? An academia which publishes so few per-capita peer-reviewed works, depending instead on notes in a local language that self-fertilizes knowledge to oblivion? A learning society hooked on sms gobblygooks and cyber-gaming? A classroom where the teacher's handwriting is squeaky small so that the little girl now put to sit in the last row because all the boys are to sit in front cannot be expected to follow maths in class, and therefore have to take extra tuition, probably conducted by the same teacher, with both being innocent parties to a system which is trying to lighten the load but end up creating more than double the work with quadruple the reading material, poorly authored to boot, in pursuit of examination standards which are barely accepted to institutions and employers that matter? A out-of-touch ruling that students must reach school by 7.20am daily to listen half-asleep to assembly talks so that three times late means the parent, perhaps a bomb disposal squad commander, has to pull his tail to go explain why his charge is late despite traffic jams, sleepy heads, breakfast-less stomachs, meandering speeches?

In the light of repeated reminders from investors, from ourselves, from people who study national rankings and competitiveness seriously, do we have the luxury of time to be less than fully utilitarian about education, and language?

How is the poor Malay student ever going to catch up with:

(a) the russians
http://tinyurl.com/e23nd

(b) the chinese
http://tinyurl.com/94bvx

or even

(c) the czechs?
http://tinyurl.com/9736u

This dialog box is too small to add the others - the indians, the italians, the brazilians, the myanmars and vietnamese.

They are all fire-breathing knowledge-chasin' dragons; what are we instead? whimpering snails?

And these small samplings are just the surface of what they all have been doing.... while the star of the commonwealth continues to twinkle into her twilight.

How is the malay boy going to grow up to be towering if his path is politicised to such an extent he has no way of surviving the journey on terms of the world?

this world, not the poignant afterlife.

To race, add religion.
To religion, add language.

Keep on adding.

We will only be burying ourselves.

As has been happening for the past 20-30 years.

Sure, one can be democratic about humanity:
http://tinyurl.com/8fd8b

and indeed, they may proffer perfumed handkerchiefs to those who call on them speaking their lingo: http://tinyurl.com/bhetw, but perhaps we are but distant pets to their cause?

To stand on our own, to send our people to Mars next, we must put things in the brain first, not just wear smiles, look skywards only and hope for the best.

We need more than prayers. We need unflinching compliance with realities.

Chinese have a saying...
"The mountains are high and the emperor is far away" meaning where the central authority is faraway, the local authority can do what it likes.

Perhaps in the field of education, the distance between the ministry and the school is actually very distant.

it seems i'm being screened out; hope this isn't a triple post (each different by a bit):

It's an old topic, only revived because you get the creeps that now and then someone would do something like that again with gusto (why else call parents to turn up on a weekend?), seemingly without checking first with the ministry or his counterparts, for that matter the headmaster of the other school.

One is just thinking how the malay pupils are going to take it. On top of BM which some are already having problems, they have to do English, and now Arabic.

When the rest of the world is moving forward to knowledge-based economies, we are here dilly-dallying about languages.

Is there time to be less than fully utilitarian about language in this day and age when we seem to have lost not only rankings but bearings and quality in education? Is our competitiveness predicated on being traders, translators, linguists even? Do we have a one-century meiji copycat advantage in national industrial and job-creating experience, add military spoils?

Once we were the toast of the commonwealth when it came to scholars. What is it like nowadays? A 12A SPM scorer saying the US SAT papers were 'difficult'? Students going to secondary schools who are still 3R-challenged? An academia which publishes so few per-capita peer-reviewed works, depending instead on notes in a local language that self-fertilizes knowledge to oblivion? A learning society hooked on sms gobblygooks and cyber-gaming? A classroom where the teacher's handwriting is squeaky small so that the little girl now put to sit in the last row because all the boys are to sit in front cannot be expected to follow maths in class, and therefore have to take extra tuition, probably conducted by the same teacher, with both being innocent parties to a system which is trying to lighten the load but end up creating more than double the work with quadruple the reading material, poorly authored to boot, in pursuit of examination standards which are barely accepted to institutions and employers that matter? An out-of-touch ruling that students must reach school by 7.20am daily to listen half-asleep to assembly talks so that three times late means the parent, perhaps a bomb disposal squad commander, has to pull his tail to go explain why his charge is late despite traffic jams, sleepy heads, breakfast-less stomachs, meandering speeches?

In the light of repeated reminders from investors, from ourselves, from people who study national rankings and competitiveness seriously, do we have the luxury of time to be less than fully utilitarian about education, and language?

How is the poor Malay student ever going to catch up with:

(a) the russians
http://tinyurl.com/e23nd

(b) the chinese
http://tinyurl.com/94bvx

or even

(c) the czechs?
http://tinyurl.com/9736u

This dialog box is too small to add the others - the indians, the italians, the brazilians, the myanmars and vietnamese.

They are all fire-breathing knowledge-chasin' dragons; what are we instead? whimpering snails?

And these small samplings are just the surface of what they all have been doing.... while the star of the commonwealth continues to twinkle into her twilight.

How is the malay boy going to grow up to be towering if his path is politicised to such an extent he has no way of surviving the journey on terms of the world?

this world, not the poignant afterlife.

To race, add religion.
To religion, add language.

Keep on adding.

We will only be burying ourselves.

As has been happening for the past 20-30 years.

Sure, one can be democratic about humanity:
http://tinyurl.com/8fd8b

and indeed, they may proffer perfumed handkerchiefs to those who call on them speaking their lingo: http://tinyurl.com/bhetw, but perhaps to them we are but distant pets to their own cause?

The MOHE has just come out to say seek your employment overseas (lack of jobs locally?) because they’ve just figured out that money will then be repatriated back. What if people do that
and move the whole family out instead because things have sucked for too long around? And let’s say it’s workable. Wouldn’t not knowing the right foreign language upfront slow down the climb upwards of our income-seeking pathfinders overseas? Why so slow and so narrow in thinking-one?

To stand on our own, to send our people to Mars next, we must put things in the brain first, not just wear smiles, look skywards only and hope for the best.

We need more than prayers. We need unflinching compliance with realities.

Sorry about the side tracking here jeff,but i have to say jackie is right in saying that some have identified Arabic with Islam.If you guys didnt know , churches in Arab land are called "BAITUL ALLAH" HOUSE OF GOD in Arabic.Even the muslims in Malaysia get it wrong most of the time.See the sighboards around, "MAKANAN ISLAM" whats that ? There is no such thing as makanan islam,pakaian islam ,and busana islam.Such things are addressed as Makanan melayu,makanan arab,makanan hahal (kosher)baju melayu ,baju kebaya,and so on.The problem starts when one race wants to be jamaican,another wants to be american,and the third wants to be an arab.Bach to the Arabic in schools , it wont take off.Hate to say this ,but i must have faith in the system.

all this is happening because we have a prime minister that is "lembek"...everyone down the line are implementing their own ideas..only in malaysia can this happen. Make an example of this guru beasr by sacking him...and see if other guru besar will come out with their own policies..Of late we have to many govt servants shooting from the hips.

It's an old topic, only revived because you get the creeps that now and then someone would do something like that again with gusto (why else call parents to turn up on a weekend?), seemingly without checking first with the ministry or his counterparts, for that matter the headmaster of the other school.

One is just thinking how the malay pupils are going to take it. On top of BM which some are already having problems, they have to do English, and now Arabic.

When the rest of the world is moving forward to knowledge-based economies, we are here dilly-dallying about languages.

Is there time to be less than fully utilitarian about language in this day and age when we seem to have lost not only rankings but bearings and quality in education? Is our competitiveness predicated on being traders, translators, linguists even? Do we have a one-century meiji copycat advantage in national industrial and job-creating experience, add military spoils?

Once we were the toast of the commonwealth when it came to scholars. What is it like nowadays? A 12A SPM scorer saying the US SAT papers were 'difficult'? Students going to secondary schools who are still 3R-challenged? An academia which publishes so few per-capita peer-reviewed works, depending instead on notes in a local language that self-fertilizes knowledge to oblivion? A learning society hooked on sms gobblygooks and cyber-gaming? A classroom where the teacher's handwriting is squeaky small so that the little girl now put to sit in the last row because all the boys are to sit in front cannot be expected to follow maths in class, and therefore have to take extra tuition, probably conducted by the same teacher, with both being innocent parties to a system which is trying to lighten the load but end up creating more than double the work with quadruple the reading material, poorly authored to boot, in pursuit of examination standards which are barely accepted to institutions and employers that matter? An out-of-touch ruling that students must reach school by 7.20am daily to listen half-asleep to assembly talks so that three times late means the parent, perhaps a bomb disposal squad commander, has to pull his tail to go explain why his charge is late despite traffic jams, sleepy heads, breakfast-less stomachs, meandering speeches?

In the light of repeated reminders from investors, from ourselves, from people who study national rankings and competitiveness seriously, do we have the luxury of time to be less than fully utilitarian about education, and language?

How is the poor Malay student ever going to catch up with:

(a) the russians
http://tinyurl.com/e23nd

(b) the chinese
http://tinyurl.com/94bvx

or even

(c) the czechs?
http://tinyurl.com/9736u

This dialog box is too small to add the others - the indians, the italians, the brazilians, the myanmars and vietnamese.

They are all fire-breathing knowledge-chasin' dragons; what are we instead? whimpering snails?

And these small samplings are just the surface of what they all have been doing.... while the star of the commonwealth continues to twinkle into her twilight.

How is the malay boy going to grow up to be towering if his path is politicised to such an extent he has no way of surviving the journey on terms of the world?

this world, not the poignant afterlife.

To race, add religion.
To religion, add language.

Keep on adding.

We will only be burying ourselves.

As has been happening for the past 20-30 years.

Sure, one can be democratic about humanity:
http://tinyurl.com/8fd8b

and indeed, they may proffer perfumed handkerchiefs to those who call on them speaking their lingo: http://tinyurl.com/bhetw, but perhaps to them we are but distant pets to their own cause?

The MOHE has just come out to say seek your employment overseas (lack of jobs locally?) because they’ve just figured out that money will then be repatriated back. What if people do that
and move the whole family out instead because things have sucked for too long around? And let’s say it’s workable. Wouldn’t not knowing the right foreign language upfront slow down the climb upwards of our income-seeking pathfinders overseas? Why so slow and so narrow in thinking-one?

To stand on our own, to send our people to Mars next, we must put things in the brain first, not just wear smiles, look skywards only and hope for the best.

We need more than prayers. We need unflinching compliance with realities.