Malaysian Education To Focus On English Mastery Next Year Onwards Says Anwar

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Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim says if Malaysia’s economic progress and capability is to increase, Bahasa Malaysia must become the main language of knowledge. (Bernama pic)PUTRAJAYA: Starting next year, the national education system has to improve students’ mastery of the English language while upholding the position of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language, says Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
Anwar said in a speech here that there should be no more debate on the position of English versus Bahasa Malaysia.
“Don’t argue anymore, as if giving English importance will leave Bahasa Malaysia behind,” he said.
Anwar added that if Malaysia’s economic progress and capability was to increase, Bahasa Malaysia must become the main language of knowledge, and be mastered by all Malaysians at all schools, including private and international schools.
“A child of Malaysia must master Bahasa Malaysia. At the same time, all our children, especially at national schools, must be given focus so that their mastery of English is much better than it is now, so that they can at least be bilingual.”
Anwar also stressed the necessity of technical and vocational education and training (TVET), saying a major German company making microchips had decided to invest RM25 billion in Malaysia.
“This means that we must train our TVET graduates, engineers, and others in the fields of mathematics, science, and technology to be able to fulfil the company’s needs.
“If not, they will hire experts from other countries.”
Meanwhile, Anwar also addressed the call for a meritocracy-based education system, saying while it was true that some Indians with good academic performance did not gain entrance to public universities, there were “hundreds of smart Malay children that do not get the opportunity”.
“There’s no such thing as a ‘fair competition’. Schools in Kapit, for example, compared with schools in Kuala Lumpur? How can there be a fair competition?
“This is why our policies give opportunities to those in rural schools, giving Malays more opportunities even though their results are not as good.” - FMT

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