Sugary Sweet

Finally, it has come down to seven options.

“It” being the teaching and learning of Maths and Science in English in schools.

I wonder what would be going through the minds of our Cabinet Ministers when the matter comes to a head and needs resolving.

Hopefully no one is thinking about scoring any political brownie points, despite the obvious popularity of such a move.

On my part as a parent whose eldest daughter would be amongst the ten of thousands of children making their first step into formal education, I fail to see the benefit of taking a retrogressive step by going back to the mother tongue in both subjects.

The way forward is always fraught with the need to push and step up in efforts.

It’s really no different here.

While it may be true that the usage of English seems to give an undue advantage to the urban and suburban students over those in the rural areas, this is a matter that could be resolved with the appropriate human resources policing.

(I say seems because personal experience shows that the so-called advantaged group has equally atrocious grasps of the language. Perhaps a different set, then..)

A particular advantage in pushing for the continued teaching in English for the two subjects is – in my mind, at least – that it would “force” students into practical usage of the globally accepted language.

Students (except for some select few) generally do not put too much stock into learning a language, as it seems to be something learnable at home and elsewhere.

In other words: they are taken simply for granted.

It’s the same for any language, be it English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin or Tamil.

Perhaps it is this deterioration that is prompting champions of the mother tongue to push the discontinuation of English as the teaching medium.

Could it be that the case of a fear that the language would eventually die a natural death for a lack of impetus in their continued use as a commercial language?

Like I said, there’s a good deal of brownie points to be made.

My hope is that current sweet needs are tampered with the realization that too much would lead to the future risk of diabetes.