Malaysia's English language crisis

THE STRAITS TIMES

PERAK October 28, 2013 1:00 am

GOVT ANXIOUS TO COUNTER SLUMP IN TEST RESULTS BY LOCAL STUDENTS

IN PERAK on the northern Peninsular Malaysia, an English teacher uses textbooks meant for sevenyear-olds to teach her Form One class of students, mostly aged 13.
"When I first taught them, they could not even tell the difference between 'when' and 'what'," the
teacher, who wants to be known only as Yee, told The Straits Times recently.
"I had to put my planned lessons aside and start with the basics."
It is the type of story many English teachers in Malaysia share, but are reluctant to speak openly
about because they worry about being sanctioned by the education ministry.
And so, when the ministry recently announced that from 2016 onwards, students in Form Five - the
equivalent of a GCE O-level class in Singapore - must pass English before they can obtain their
school-leaving certificates, it set tongues wagging.
After all, last year, almost a quarter of 470,000 Form Five students failed English, and only 16 per cent
of them scored highly in the language.
"Without the school-leaving certificates, the students cannot further their studies or get jobs," said Lok
Yim Pheng, secretary-general of the National Union of the Teaching Profession. "Is their future being
killed?"

Part of the problem, educators say, is that there are not enough qualified English teachers. Recently,
the education ministry revealed that 70 per cent of the country's 70,000 English teachers failed a
competency test to teach the language.
The ministry is now working overtime to re-train thousands of English teachers around the country to
try and meet the 2016 deadline.
"It is an ambitious goal, but we cannot tolerate students not being able to communicate in English any
more," Dr Habibah Abdul Rahim, head of a new agency within the ministry, told The Straits Times in a
recent interview.
"Something needs to be done."
In Malaysia, English is a |compulsory subject from Primary One to Form Five. Despite that, many
school-leavers, especially in rural areas, cannot converse or write fluently in English.
It was not always this way.
During the British colonial era, schools used English as the medium of instruction. This continued after
independence in 1957 and many English teachers either came from the United Kingdom or were
trained there.
"In the 1960s, one of the books read and discussed in English classes by sixteen-year-olds was
George Orwell's "Animal Farm", recalled Andrew Yip, 60, a shopkeeper in Ipoh, Perak.
In 1970, the Malaysian government began requiring all state-funded schools to use Malay to teach, to
build nationalism; though English remained a compulsory subject.
Many English teachers were phased out.
Over the years, students' academic performances declined.
In the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment, an international benchmark on
students' performance in reading, science and mathematics, Malaysian students were in the bottom
third among 74 countries.
By contrast, 15-year-old students in Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea appeared to have the
equivalent of another three or more years of schooling compared to Malaysian students.
According to Jobstreet.com Malaysia, a recruitment agency, poor English is among the top complaints
that employers have about fresh graduates.
To compensate, middle-class parents are increasingly sending their children for tuition, or to private
schools, as they lose confidence in the quality of education in national schools.
Teachers who spoke to The Straits Times on condition of anonymity said it was impossible to meet the
ministry's English "must-pass" target in two years.
Habibah said they aim to prove sceptics wrong.

Her agency is named Padu, or the Performance and Delivery Unit. Starting in November last year,
some 14,000 teachers have been enrolled on crash courses in English. After school hours, they take
lessons online and attend classes taught by teachers from the British Council and English university
lecturers.
Upon finishing 480 hours of studies, they are reassessed. Those who fail are redeployed to teach
other subjects.
The ministry is also promoting experienced teachers to be coaches. Already, almost 300 such
coaches have been sent to district education offices in mostly rural Kedah and Sabah provinces.
But some feel it is not enough.
Former premier Mahathir Mohamad has called for a return to teaching science and mathematics in
English, a policy introduced by him in 2003 and scrapped by Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2009.
Such flip-flops, said Dr Kua Kia Soong, an educator, have hurt students. "They have affected
students' concentration in grasping the language," he said.
A teacher in Sabah, who asked to be identified only as Nurul, is among those preparing the first batch
of students aiming to achieve the compulsory English pass. She said they are doing what they can.
For example, she advises the weakest students to find and copy sentences that have similar words to
the question.
"At least they get some marks and do not hand in a blank exam paper," she said.

Cambridge English is working with

Malaysian Ministry of Education

Cambridge English is working with Malaysian Ministry of Education

23/01/2014
Cambridge English Language Assessment is working with the Ministry of Education in Malaysia to carry
out an in-depth study of the learning, teaching and assessment of English in Malaysian schools.
The large-scale project will focus on children and teachers in schools from pre-school to pre-university.
Hanan Khalifa, Head of Research and International Development and Martin Robinson, Assistant Director
Assessment from Cambridge recently met with the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tan Sri Muhyiddin
Yassin, in London to brief him on the progress to date of the project, entitled "The Cambridge Baseline
Project: measuring English language standards and establishing an evidence-based baseline for Malaysian
schools."
The study is part of a programme which aims to ensure every child is proficient in Bahasa Malaysia and
English and is endorsed by the Malaysian Education Blueprint 20132025.
Deputy Director-General of Education (Policy and Development, MOE), Datuk Amin Senin, said
Cambridge English was commissioned to undertake the study in May last year. Amin said the study will
measure the English language proficiency of students and the teaching abilities and practices in schools.
The study will review the current national curricula, learning materials, examinations and teaching
practices, as well as testing the language levels of students and teachers at the end of pre-school, end of
primary school (Year 6), end of lower secondary (Form 3), end of upper secondary (Form 5) and end of
Form 6.
The findings from the study will provide the Ministry of Education with baseline data that can be used to
set realistic and achievable targets for future learning. Recommendations are expected to be submitted to
the government in March 2014.
Martin Robinson commented Malaysia is embarking upon a visionary education reform programme to
ensure that every child will be proficient in Bahasa Malaysia as the national language of unity and in
English as the international language of communication. We are very impressed by the rigorous approach
the Ministry of Education is taking and it is especially commendable that the Ministry is employing such a
ground-breaking, evidence-based approach to providing solutions to the challenges it faces. By
undertaking such a comprehensive review of the whole English language education system, Cambridge
English Language Assessment is helping Malaysia turn the visions and aspirations of the Education
Blueprint into realistic and achievable targets. The Cambridge Baseline Project is the first step in helping
Malaysia deliver lasting, genuine educational reform.

Malaysia
Furore over RM270m bill to train English teachers
OCTOBER 21, 2013
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 21 After the
uproar over McKinsey & Cos RM20
million bill to draw up the National
Education Blueprint (NEB), Putrajaya is in
the spotlight again for paying three other
external consultants a staggering RM270
million to help teachers here improve their
English.
Citing details from a recent parliamentary
reply, DAP assistant national publicity
secretary Zairil Khir Johari said the training programme, stretched out over three years from 2011
to 2013, was meant to train a total of 7,500 teachers from 1,800 schools nationwide at a
cumulative cost of RM268.5 million or RM89.5 milion each year.
The three handpicked consultant firms - British Council, Brighton Education Grpup and SMR HR
Group - are each tasked to provide a total of 360 trainers or English speaking mentors over the
three-year period, he said.
The firms responsibilities are divided geographically, Zairil added, with the British Council slotted
to provide mentors for teachers in Labuan, Sabah and Sarawak, while Brighton Education Group
will train teachers in Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Malacca, Johor and Negeri Sembilan and
the SMR HR Group will train teachers in Penang, Perlis, Perak, Kedah and Selangor.
In other words, close to RM270 million is being spent to hire 360 English mentors. This breaks
down to RM250,000 a year for each mentor, or an extravagant sum of almost RM21,000 a
month, the Bukit Bendera MP said in a statement here.

No matter what explanation MOE gives, there is no way they can justify the absurd amount of
money being spent to provide what is essentially a three-years paid working-holiday to 360 native
English mentors, he said, referring to the Education Ministry by its English initials.
Even worse, Zairil claimed that ground reports and feedback from teachers currently undergoing
the programme revealed that the mentoring they receive ranges from only three to four hours a
month.
This casts doubt over the efficiency of the programme, the lawmaker said as he questioned how
any individual could be expected to master a language or any subject with such few hours of
exposure.
Furthermore, the total expenditure of RM270 million to train 7,500 teachers is equivalent to
RM36,000 per teacher over three years, he said.
The same sum, Zairil pointed out, was starkly higher than what it would cost to enrol the same
teacher into a properly-structured English language degree programme in a local university.
For example, the DAP parliamentarian said the Wawasan Open University offers a Bachelor of
Arts (Hons) in English Studies at a total cost of about RM24,000, which is two-thirds the cost of
the mentoring programme currently provided by the consultancy firms.
A six-month diploma course in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), on
the other hand, would cost only RM4,500 at a local private college, he added.
While the objective of improving the quality of English-language teachers is admirable and
should be pursued, there is absolutely no justification for MOEs penchant for hiring overpaid
consultants, especially when cheaper and better options are readily available, Zairil said.
Putrajaya earned flak from its critics in the opposition recently when it was revealed that foreign
consultancy McKinsey & Co had been paid a staggering RM20,556,400 fee to draw up the NEB.
Another DAP federal lawmaker Ong Kian Ming, when weighing in on the controversy, said the
government had unnecessarily squandered taxpayers monies by hiring McKinsey & Co, pointing
out that the firms staff are not education specialists but merely general management consultants.
He said the project management office (PMO) could have asked other high-powered individuals
from the Education Ministry and the governments efficiency unit Pemandu to prepare the
blueprint, instead of hiring external consultants.
Surely the PMO could have utilised its many capable resources within the Ministry and Pemandu
to prepare this National Education Blueprint?

Why waste RM20 million on employing expensive management consultants? the Serdang MP
asked in a recent statement.
He also said that this would further cast doubt on the Ministry of Educations ability to issue a
transparent and accountable annual report of its progress in implementing the NEB.
The National Education Blueprint, which was launched by Muhyiddin on September 6 this year, is
a 15-year roadmap for the countrys education system that will cover the years from 2013 to
2025.
The government will take stock of the NEBs progress at the milestone years of 2015, 2020 and
2025.
One of the governments aims in the NEB is to propel Malaysia to the top third tier in international
education rankings in 15 years time, based on the results of the Trends in International
Mathematics and Science Study and the Programme for International Student Assessment.
Copyright 2015 | Malay Mail Online

INDEPENDENT NATIONAL NEWSPAPER OF EAST MALAYSIA

Established since 1963

1,022 teachers take Cambridge Placement Test

Published on: Thursday, January 23, 2014

Kota Kinabalu: A total of 1,022 English teachers are now undergoing the Cambridge Placement Test (CPT)
in their respective districts in Sabah.
Education Director Datuk Jame Alip (pic) said on Wednesday the course is aimed to improve their English
skills and teaching pedagogy methods.
"They are being trained by the British Council in their respective districts," he said.
CPT is a course introduced by the Education Ministry with the collaboration with the British Council in a bid
to boost the implementation of the Education Blueprint.
Deputy Prime Minister cum Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in June last year announced that
9,000 teachers will be selected for the CPT course nationwide.
A special entity called Education Implementation and Performance unit (Padu) has been set up to monitor
and ensure the success of this initiative.
Meanwhile only 10 teachers from the US under the Fullbright English Assistance Programme have arrived
and placed in education offices in Kota Belud, Tuaran, Papar and Beaufort.
"They will serve as teachers assistants to encourage students to communicate in English with confidence,"

said Jame.
Bernama reported last year that some 300 teachers are expected to arrive in Sabah this year under the
same programme.
Jame also said he will hold the special meeting with all education officers in Sabah the soonest possible to
discuss the problem of natural disasters affecting schools in the State.
He said he will ask each office to provide reports on vulnerable schools which are disaster-prone and find a
permanent solution to resolve the matter.
He noted most of the schools in the state were planned and built decades ago when problems such as
flooding or landslides were never put into equation.

Copyright 2015 Sabah Publishing House Sdn. Bhd.

_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
Malaysia pushes forward with ambitious education
reforms
6 May 2013

The state of Malaysias education system is no small issue for those interested in the flows of
international students around the world.

With estimates that 42% of global enrolments (or 212.9 million enrolments) will be from the East
Asia and Pacific region by 2035, Malaysias educational capacity and the quality of its
educational system is an important aspect of the regional and global markets.
Malaysians know this, and it is one of the reasons the controversial Barisan Nasional (BN)
government (just re-elected in a hotly contested election) has made educational reform such a
focus in the last year.
The stakes are high: Malaysia was ranked 55 out of 77 countries in the recent Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) report. Not one Malaysian public university placed in
the top 400 of the 20122013 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. And
yet, the country is busily solidifying its image as an education hub, thanks in large part to its
successful efforts to attract international universities: the Iskander Education Hub is one example
of such an effort.
An aggressive initiative to lure foreign universities and students does not jibe well with a poorly
performing public education system. Nor does a weak public education system elevate an
economy to the level it needs to be to compete with the growing number of countries prioritising
the knowledge basis of their economies. So in autumn of last year, Malaysia announced an
ambitious new Blueprint designed, among other things, to elevate Malaysian students from the
bottom one-third to the top one-third of the [PISA] ranking within the next 13 years.

A blueprint for action

The Malaysia Education Blueprint 20132025 has been called

the biggest shake-up ever of our education system a 13-year roadmap

[which] will reshape how our policymakers, education officials, teachers
and parents deal with educating and teaching millions of our schoolchildren
and preparing them and the nation for the future.

The stated targets of the Blueprint are:

Universal enrolment from pre-school to upper secondary education in 10 years;

Halving the achievement gaps between the rich and the poor, urban and rural, and

between the states that form Malaysia in eight years;

Rising from the bottom-third to the top-third of countries in international assessments like

PISA and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 15 years;
Building an education system that gives children an appreciation of their unique identity

as Malaysians.
Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the plan prioritises:

Upholding the teaching profession;

Enhancing the leadership of schools;
Enhancing the quality of schools;
Strengthening the curriculum and assessment standards;

Enhancing proficiency in various languages;

Getting the involvement of parents;
Partnering with the private and social sectors;
Making students better prepared for higher education and the job market;
Improving the competency and effectiveness of our resources;
Building up the potential and ability of the delivery system.

In addition, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is calling on students to pick up three languages (it
has been said that too many students are focusing on Bahasa Malaysia to the detriment of their
English language skills). The prime minister said at the Blueprints launch in Kuala Lumpur:

We need that competitive edge. We can leverage on our multiracial

component. Why lose that advantage? We should be pragmatic.

Education Minister Yassin explained that there are three waves to the Blueprints action plan:

Wave 1: Blueprint implementation more support for teachers and a focus on core
student skills.
Wave 2: Building upon progress.
Wave 3: To occur between 2020 and 2025, schools will take over their own
administration.

Officials say they are on track already

A ceremony was recently held to celebrate the First 100 Days of the 2013-2025 Blueprint, and at
the event, government officials declared that six of the plans initiatives have been carried out.
Chief among them were the development of a parents toolkit to foster education at home as well
as at school 10,000 have been given to schools nationwide and measures and testing to
improve the English language proficiency of teachers.
So far 61,000 English educators have taken a Cambridge placement test in preparation for a
must-pass test to be introduced in 2016.
Meanwhile, the drive for international students and universities continues
As we reported last summer, Malaysia wants to become the worlds sixth-biggest education
exporting country by 2020 with a target of 200,000 international students.
The country is supporting the development mostly privately funded of two education cities:

Kuala Lumpur Education City (KLEC), launched in 2007, is still in development and aims
to house both international and local universities, as well as primary and secondary
schools in a 500-acre KLEC Academic Park. The hub will offer education from University
of Cambridges Judge Business School, Epsom College, and Universiti Sains
Malaysia (and potentially other schools) to those in the region with an expected student
population of nearly 30,000.

EduCity at Iskandar is a similar idea: a 350-acre campus on which several universities

will be housed as well as elaborate sports and leisure facilities including a 14,000-seater
stadium and an Olympic-length swimming pool. The idea is to create a student village of
about 16,000 students on the campus, where students from each university share access
to the amazing recreational and sports facilities. Mohd Hisham Kamaruzaman, acting chief
operating officer of Education@Iskandar Sdn Bhd (owned by Iskandar Investment Berhad,
which is developing EduCity), told University World News that the student village and
sports complex will be ready by August, in time for the next academic year. Several
universities are already open in EduCity, with more about to start.
Cohesion between public and private educational investments
As Malaysia continues to develop its education hubs, it is reassuring to note that it seems newly
dedicated to improving the public infrastructure of its domestic education system.
If Malaysia is able to carry through meaningfully on its new Education Blueprint 20132025, this
at least as much as its two education hubs will set it on the right path to becoming a notable
knowledge economy in the region.
Source:

http://monitor.icef.com/2013/05/malaysia-pushes-forward-with-ambitiouseducation-reforms/

Friday, 12 June 2015 10:21

JOHOR SULTAN SAYS IT AGAIN: Make English a medium of instruction in

schools

JOHOR BARU - Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar is known to be an outspoken advocate
of English-medium education. Meeting with scholarship recipients recently, he asked them point blank
whether their English fluency was good enough for them to deserve the awards. He is also fond of
equating the English language to the US dollar, saying "it's accepted everywhere and used
everywhere, even in countries where the people don't speak English well."
English advances and unites
Q: Tuanku, in your address at the opening of the Johor State Legislative Assembly recently, you
suggested that Malaysia should adopt Singapore's education policy that uses English as a medium of
instruction, especially to forge unity. Could you elaborate?
A: Singapore is our closest neighbour. We don't have to go very far; we should emulate them as the
island republic has achieved development way ahead of us.
Let's be honest with ourselves. Singapore has done well as a country. Their students have fared very
well in Mathematics and Science. The prominent use of English has set them ahead of us.
We shouldn't kid ourselves. We have politicians in Malaysia who are in self-denial or choose to play
politics with education. They want to be heroes of their races. They talk about nationalism but at the
end, do they send their children to boarding schools in Australia and the United Kingdom to learn in
Malay medium?
I also know of so-called Chinese educationists who champion Chinese education, even insisting nonMandarin speaking teachers should not be allowed to teach in Chinese primary schools. These are
the extremists. I know one such leader had tertiary education in Western countries. We have many
such hypocrites.
One thing that we can learn from Singapore is their way of forging national unity via their education
system. The use of English as a medium of instruction has been effective in the development of the
country and uniting their people regardless of race or religion.

English schools are neutral grounds. We used to have such schools in Malaysia until it was changed.
Was there any problem then?
The proficiency of English is bad among children, and our children do not mix among themselves. The
Malays go to national schools where the Chinese feel alienated, while the Indians go to Tamil schools.
Where is the unity?
Then some people also want Chinese and Indian universities. All this is driving the races apart. Yet we
say we are all 1Malaysia. Unfortunately, I see all this as 5Malaysian.
The richer Malaysians send their children to private and international schools where English is the
medium of instruction. So, who says there are no English-medium schools? But they are only
available to the middle and upper-middle class from urban areas.
So, soon we will also have a class issue. This is all due to the myopic planning and thinking of our
politicians.
For me, education is the foundation to create the country's future generation.
As such, I hope Johoreans will start to open up their minds. I have sent the signals across and I hope
they start thinking now with regard to the country's education system and are willing to change for the
benefit of the people and long-term development.
I am confident if we have an education system based on a single stream for students from a young
age, we will be able to create a community which is more harmonious and can work together to face
challenges in the future.
Anyway, we can also teach Bahasa Malaysia in schools as it is the country's national language. You
can still have English as the medium of instruction but BM and Chinese or Tamil are compulsory.
Don't forget, when English was used as a medium of instruction in schools in the 1950s and 1960s, a
pass in BM was compulsory. Even a pass in Mathematics was compulsory to pass the Form 3 exam
but now you don't even have to pass your Maths test! - Asiaone

Nation
Home > News > Nation
Published: Saturday June 13, 2015 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Updated: Saturday June 13, 2015 MYT 11:03:00 AM

Parents support Johor Sultans call for English as a

medium of instruction in schools

Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar. -Bernama filepic

PETALING JAYA: Parents have come out in support of the Sultan of Johors call for
English to be made a medium of instruction in schools.

Shirley Tan said she was all for it.

Ive always believed in Singapores education system and we cant deny that they
are good, said Tan, who is also an English teacher.
However, Tan, who teaches at SMK USJ 12 here, said Bahasa Melayu should also
be given emphasis in schools as the language was part of our national identity.
On Thursday, Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar told The Star that
Malaysia should adopt Singapores education policy that used English as a medium
of instruction as it had been effective in uniting people regardless of race or religion.
Another parent, Chanthra Balasingam from Kuala Lumpur, said given the chance,
she would definitely send her children to English-medium national schools.
Now, everything is in English. Having subjects in English gives students more time
to practise the language, said Chanthra, an English lecturer in a Petaling Jaya
college.
Kenneth Adrian Emuang, a father of seven, said introducing English medium schools
would not be easy as there might be more work for the Education Ministry.
But this is necessary and a way forward for our country, said the 51-year-old
businessman based in the Klang Valley.
Parent Action Group for English Malaysia (PAGE) chairman Datin Noor Azimah
Abdul Rahim said having English medium schools was not impossible.
If all teachers are prepared and trained for it before the plan is rolled out, having
English as a medium of instruction in schools will not be a problem, she said.
She also said there was good reason for this call.
According to the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025, instructional time in
English language in schools might not be enough for students to build operational
proficiency, she said.
So, PAGE has supported and will always support any suggestion for Englishmedium schools, she said.
Source :
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2015/06/13/Royal-call-gets-thumbs-upParents-support-Johor-Sultans-call-for-English-as-a-medium-of-instruction/