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There are two initiatives I'd like to draw attention to today. The first is Scientific Malaysian , an independent attempt to connect Malaysians interested in science and to raise the profile of the Malaysian scientific community. It's an interesting initiative, so definitely check it out. The other is a survey by a Malaysian undergraduate studying at the University of Michigan in the US. Jian Wei is trying to understand whether there is a relation between emotional attachment to one's country and one's desire to participate in its national affairs. Finding good data is a challenge for social scientists everywhere, so if you can give Jian Wei your dua sen, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

Some on this blog has called for my comments on this issue. Some have even emailed me privately to "declare my stand". Well, I wrote on my Facebook early today a short note on my position, which I copy below. I've also taken the liberty to also include some of the 40+ comments on this issue so far in this post. "Tony Pua hopes that schools in urban areas where the students, teachers and parents are keen to retain English as the medium for Maths and Science will be given a choice to opt out of the switch back to BM/BC, especially in secondary schools." I've also made the following short comment to another Facebook friend who had asked the same: "My stand is that PIBG should have a say/choice in the language use, particularly in urban areas where competency in English is already fairly high and in demand. You/we should push for this. Rural areas can't help it, especially with teachers who can't even string a sentence together in English....

Thank you to the anonymous commenter who brought this to our attention ; I am sure Tony and Kian Ming will have a lot to say about this. Here is the story from The Malaysian Insider , and here are some graphs from The Star . My take is as follows: This is horrible. But anything which had a realistic chance of happening would be almost as bad. In a perfect world, students would be learning all subjects in the best language for them individually, and also learning Malay and English perfectly fine regardless. But we do not live in that perfect world. In the next best world, we would have a consistent policy (sticking to either English or Malay for Science and Maths, if not all subjects) and competent teachers able to implement this policy. This being Malaysia, and our politics being our politics, what we got was a silly compromise that made nobody very happy, and a paralysed bureaucracy uninterested in making this policy work. One of the most telling graphs in the link to The Star above i...

Richard Feynman was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics. He was an eccentric figure, and quite a few books have been written by him and or about him on the subject of his life. One of the most famous, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! is now available for reading online, absolutely free . (If reading online gives you eyestrain, there's always Amazon .) The book deals with a wide range of fascinating topics, from sex to business to art, but because Feynman spent most of his life in academia, it focuses on education. The book is primarily a collection of loosely-related essays, so you can skip the irrelevant parts if you don't find them interesting, but I recommend you read the whole book anyway. The following essays are especially relevant to education: Lucky Numbers O Americana, Outra Vez! Judging Books by Their Covers Lucky Numbers has a very interesting twist on the standard litany about the evils of rote memorisation. F...

Looks like the new Education Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, has decided to defer the decision on whether to continue teaching Science and Math in English until he is "satisfied with the analysis about what are effects from the current policies and what could be improved or if there is a need to amend the policies". This is part of the same newspaper report by the Malaysian Insider. “We are looking at some research carried out by a number of independent bodies. They have given me feedback which is not very similar to what the round table discussion that we have. Some round table do not have enough facts and evidences. “There are a lot of feedback which I think has to be looked at and we are prepared to wait a little bit longer because whatever decision that the government is going to make on this issue is important because we do not want to be seen as a flip flop in terms of administering this issue,” Muhyiddin said. He added that the Ministry i...

I wrote this in December of last year - "I suspect that a compromise decision may be made. Either continue teaching S&M in English at the secondary school level or start after Primary 3." A recent piece by the Malaysian Insider - written by Leslie Lau, who has strong links to BN leaders, had this to say - The government is likely to scrap the policy of using English to teach science and mathematics in primary schools while maintaining it for secondary schools. Education Ministry sources told The Malaysian Insider today that the compromise in policy will be recommended to the Cabinet for a final decision soon in an effort to resolve a controversy which has been brewing for months. Frankly, I would have liked the policy to continue and improve on its implementation. Now we are in a half way house where neither side is really happy and students and teachers continue to be confused. No one wins.

Headline in the Star today - 51.2% of candidates chose English and English only to answer their PMR Science exam compared with 30.8% who answer in Malay and 18% who used a combination of the two. In the previous year, only 21.5% used English and only English. This is a pretty big jump. I would have liked to see the breakdown for Math as well to see if there was a similar jump. Perhaps this may be a sign that there will not be a complete reversion to the previous policy of teaching S&M in BM or mother tongue at the primary school level? I suspect that a compromise decision may be made. Either continue teaching S&M in English at the secondary school level or start after Primary 3.

I know that this issue has been flogged to death but I had a thought about this yesterday. Regardless of the outcome, there will be groups that will be unhappy. But one thing which I commend the Ministry of Education for is that they did expend time and resources to seek feedback from different groups. This is a far cry from the way this policy was implemented which was basically a executive decision with little or no debate. According to a Star report , MOE has held 5 roundtable meetings thus far soliciting feedback from different 'stakeholders' including representatitives from PTAs, NGOs and academics. In addition, MOE also presented some of their internal papers and analysis on the UPSR results to some of these stakeholders which I thought was a progressive way of allowing the stakeholders to evaluate the findings of the MOE and then discuss those findings. In addition, the MOE was flexible enough to put different proposals on the table. The proposals are: > Stick ...

Have your say! The Star SMS Poll, Tuesday 16 Dec 2008 Should Mathematics and Science continue to be taught in English in primary schools? YES - type STAR NEWS1 A and send to 32088 NO - type STAR NEWS1 B and send to 32088 Polling begins at 7am and ends at 5pm today, Tuesday 16 Dec 2008. Each SMS will cost 30 sen. In the case of multiple entries, only your last vote will be taken into account.

In case any of our readers are wondering, no, I've not lost track of the current debate on teaching Science and Math in English. Partly because of time and partly because of the complexity and the deep feelings which all sides have on this issue, I've tried to take a little bit more time to digest and reflect on the latest round of reactions and counter-reactions to this issue. My gut tells me that the Education Minister, Hishamuddin Tun Hussein, will probably revert to teaching Science and Math in BM, Chinese and Tamil at the primary school level but allow this policy to continue at the secondary school level. It will be a political decision, even if the Minister says otherwise. The sad thing for me is that most of the people who are pushing for a reversion back to the old policy are doing it for selfish reasons and do not have the benefit of the students in mind. I'll explain what I mean by this. Most of those who are pushing for a reversion to the previous policy of teac...