Media statement
by Ronnie Liu Tian Khiew, DAP National Publicity Secretary and Education Bureau Chairman
on Wednesday, 06 November 2002
in Petaling Jaya

UPSR 2002 Result shows that Maths and Science should be taught in mother tongue for all primary schools (SK, SJKC and SJKT)

While the Chinese primary schools once again achieved better results than the Malay and Tamil primary schools in Maths and Science in the latest UPSR 2002 results announced yesterday, the results obtained by SK and SJKT were not low. The passing rates for Maths and Science were 92.6% and 85.9% respectively for SJKC, as compared to 82% and 80.7% for SK, and 81.1% and 74.7% for SJKT. This year, 52.7% of the SJKC candidates scored As in Maths, as compared to 24.2% for SK and 15.9% for SJKT.

The UPSR result once again proves that mother tongue is certainly effective in teaching conceptual subjects such as Maths and Science. There is really no reason and illogical to make our primary school students as guinea pigs by switching the medium of instruction to a second language, in this case, English. We only need to put more emphasis on the teaching of the English language subject if we are serious about raising the standard of English among our children. Alternatively, the BN Government should be bold enough to reintroduce the English medium primary schools as an additional option for our children.

It's most unfortunate that the BN Council has came out with the unproven 2-4-3 formula, which was educationally unsound in our opinion. It was even more unfortunate that the Deputy Prime Minister Dato Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has stoop so low on the issue of teaching Maths and Science in English. Abdullah has threatened to use the Seditious Act to charge those who oppose the 2-4-3 formula in court.

Abdullah has once came out publicly to clarify that the Malay NGOs did not reached a consensus to support the move taken by the BN Government, that the report made by the Utusan Malaysia was not correct. His attitude was somewhat hardened when he was asked to comment on the decision announced by the MCA Central Committee a week before the final decision on last Thursday. He warned the MCA not to defy with the position taken by the Prime Minister on the subject.

As an active party to the "2-4-3 formula" for all Chinese primary schools (where only 2 periods will be used for teaching the English language, and 4 and 3 periods will be used to teaching Maths and Science in English respectively), Abdullah should know better than us that the settlement was merely a political compromise reached between the BN parties, and not necessary beneficial to our school children and parents. There are many questions left to be answered before the Government can proceed with the switch.

The 2-4-3 formula struck by the BN parties went against the original objective set by the Prime Minister himself. Not only it would not be effective in raising the standard of English, it is also not possible to maintain the good standard of Maths and Science (91% and 84% passes respectively in UPSR results 2001) among the Chinese students. How could a mere 2 periods a week be sufficient to learn a new language like English? How could the use of second language be more effective and practical than the use of mother tongue in the teaching of conceptual subjects such as Maths and Science?

Last week, the DAP has proposed to devote the entire 9 (2+4+3) additional periods to teach the English language in Chinese primary schools beginning from 2003. That would certainly be more effective than having only 2 periods as proposed by the BN Council.

We have also proposed to maintain mother tongue as the medium of instruction for both Maths and Science in order to maintain the high standard of these two subjects. This will also help to preserve the character of the vernacular schools.