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The reason why I choose this topic today because I want to highlight the major problems today in Malaysia. Most of us still in dilemma to choose either one. The International Language or The National Language.
Since gaining independence from Great Britain in 1957 and after the Malaysia Formation in 1963, it is agreed by all that the Malay Language will be dubbed as this country national language. Later the name change into Bahasa Malaysia due to the fact that it is the first language of all Malaysians, Malay, Bumiputera, Chinese and Indians alike.
The glory of the Malay Language are during the time of Malacca Sultanate when the language become the lingua franca of this region. Up until now, Malay Language are the National Language in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia. Indonesia has a differs version of its Bahasa Indonesia.
Despite of that, still widely and proudly used in Indonesia and Brunei, the scenario is differs to their Malaysia and Singapore counterpart. Singapore even with Malay Language as the National Language, use English as their official language. While in Malaysia, the problems of this language arise even it is the Malay Language homeland.
Reason
The glory of Bahasa Malaysia in Malaysia started when the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia is formed. The motive is to be the first university to use Malay Language in its education systems. And after that, all our education change from English based into Malay based. Accept for some vernacular school who still used other language like Mandarin and Tamil.
After 2002, the government made the most contrversial decisions. Used English for Science and Mathematics teachings. Started from that, all university in Malaysia including the famous Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia adopted English in their education system. The cyllibus at school change from time to time. The reasons is simple, most of Malaysians are not competents in English communications.
Maybe I understand at some part, yes.. most of Malaysians did not excell in English communications. I am not going to elaborate further, I think we are doing fine for the rest 40 years with Bahasa Malaysia, why change now?
Just look at some example like Korea, Japan, China, France, Germany and Spain. They're just fine with their own mothers tongue. Even Thailand, developing with their Thai Language. What is our problem exactly?
Some of the excuses, all refference book are in English, English are international language, and some other excuses. As for a nation that just imerges as a Newly Industrialized Country, to attract invester are vital.
Opinion
From my opinion, we should at least stay by using Bahasa Malaysia due to the fact that it is our national and officials language. And the most important, I think that one nation will be more proactive if their learning with their own mother tongue.
If we had problems lack with refference sources, we should leave it to Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka to translated it. I'm not said this because of politics or anything, i'm only say it because we, the students were the victims here. Try to understand, how we are going to learn properly if the cyllibus always changing. First English, then BM, then English.. and then try to change it to BM again? Give it a rest please...
What most important is language is part of our culture. Be proud of it.
Choose one Malaysians, Bahasa Malaysia or English.
you can't compare us to Korea, Japan, France, etc man. have you seen those countries in general? have you ever been there? do you know how big those countries are? how well they are doing economically, politically and how they are taking care of the well being of their citizens? we are a nation that depends on trade with international countries, particularly Europe and USA. these are countries that uses English as their main language. the thing is, the government did not tell us to speak english only and forget our mother tongue altogether. the whole idea of having english as the medium taught in schools are so that we are trained from young to be able to converse well in english so that when these same "young" generation gets older and graduate from universities, they will not embarrass themselves by having grammatical error or lack of self confidence when interacting with people from other countries.
ReplyDeletewhat, do you think people from France or Korea or Japan or such would come to Malaysia, have a translator book and speak in Malay to us? we are nothing but a small third world country to them. why would they bother to learn our language? until one day when malaysia have become a force to be reckoned with, until we have maybe produced nuclear weapons or found a gazillion worth of oil in our grounds, then maybe, MAYBE these people will respect our tiny country and our request of having them speak our language when they're in our country. maybe then it will not matter if we speak upside down in english. but until then, do you think you're strong enough to command them to do so? if not, then maybe we should have supported the whole "english taught at school" idea and have our children be at par as those from other more successful countries.
another question, are you a graduate from some local university? because seriously man, you've got as much grammatical error and spelling mistakes as a primary one student would've made for a blog post.
I’m full aware of all my statement that I made in my blog. Furthermore, it is not my grammatical mistake is the issue here. It is about PPSMI, which I don’t want to elaborate further because it is clear that the government has abolished the system.
ReplyDeletePlus, I’m also well aware the advantage of this “English taught at school systems”.
BUT, just think for a moment ok? If Malaysia did became a very.. very.. very successful nation because of the system, will our generations at that time reverse the system back to Bahasa Malaysia?
I think you know the answer Joansey Getup