English Is The Language For Growth & Progress

On PM troubled by ministry's dilly-dallying over English policy

Sayyed Alif Khan: Moving away from English as a medium of instruction in schools was an insane act by the government.

The government fails to recognise that the founding fathers of this nation had an excellent command of English and each and every prime minister of this country since independence has an excellent command of English which includes the future prime minister.

This command of the English language is what brought international recognition to this country.

Our ex-prime minister Dr Mahathir who introduced the Look East policy should know very well the enormous investment the Japanese made in the seventies to acquire this language in order to promote their trade internationally.

They knew very well that without the command of the English language and the etiquette that goes with it, they will not make much headway.

We were blessed with an excellent education system where the medium of instruction was in English and it is this education system that gave this country outstanding leadership.

We are now witnessing the type of leadership the revised education system has produced - pathetic, which is putting it mildly.

Enough damage has been done and let us not head for doomsday. Lets get English back on track as the medium of instruction, not just for science and maths.

In this day and age, a wide spectrum of knowledge can only be acquired with a good command of English and not Malay, Chinese, Hindi, French, Tamil etc.

An industrialised country without matured, knowledgeable citizens will have no strength in the future. So lets do away with the politicking and get realistic.

As published in Malaysiakini on 10 Mac, 2009,