WTF? Dong Jiao Zong (however u ever learned how to pronounce that) wants Science and Maths to be taught in Chinese in Chinese Primary School? WTF. WTF. WTF.
WHY ON EARTH?! Are you people nuts? It took the government such a hard time making English the medium of instruction for Science and Maths in schools and now you want to revert the policy? And your argument is to protect Chinese culture?
Hello, being in a Chinese environment with Chinese subjects is not good enough to learn Chinese eh? Not all Chinese kids are good in English too ok. I see so many students from Chinese schools graduating with poor speaking and writing skills. Do we want our Chinese kids to be further disadvantaged in this globalised world?
Anyway, this is a note the Education Minister. PLEASE KEEP THE CURRENT POLICY OF TEACHING SCIENCE AND MATHS IN ENGLISH. I was the last batch of students to be taugh in Malay and I despised that fact. I went on to pursue my A-level in Singapore where everything was taught in English. Luckily for me, I use English at home and I did not have to struggle much in Singapore with language. But for many others I bet learning everything in English was tough. So please keep the current policy for our future generation’s benefit.
Hi, I'm Bobby Ong and I'm 20 years old. I'm currently studying Economics at University College London. I lead the typical, interesting college life and am having the time of my life touring Europe every holiday. Pardon me for the not-so-frequent update here. I'm just too absorbed having fun to even spend time in front of the computer. Read more about me 
December 15th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Its Dong Jiao Zhong.
I agree with DJZ initiative to teach Science and Mathemathics in Mandarin.
No offense to you, but whats good of you if you don`t even know your own language and culture?
Being able to ace in English but not able to utter a complete grammatically correct sentence in mandarin, your own language is a sad thing, a very sad one. Its like you know how to fix a spaceship but you can’t even change the lightbulb.
Besides, Japan, Korea, France and Germany, they all teach Science and Mathematics in their own respective language and yet aren’t they competitive on the world stage? Language became a problem ONLY IF you choose to teach Science and mathematics with a less competitive language, namely Malay.
Teaching Sci and Math in Mandarin is the perfect way to prepare them for the world, of course, if possible, teaching them in both English and Mandarin is even better. But hey, they are learning Science and Math in English when they go Secondary school arent they?
Look at us, we are a perfect example of government education policy failure. We learnt science and mathematics in Malay when we go to primary school, then it continues to secondary school. But when we got to our tertiary education (degree OR pre-U), it became English all of a sudden. Can you imagine the extra efforts we have to invest because of the differences in language?
However, if a student is being taught the mandarin way of science and mathematics, it opens another door for them in future if they decide to pursue their education in China or Taiwan or heck, even Japanese University will do. They have the foundations in Mandarin and it got strengthened when they go to secondary school, in the English system.
There are alot of good unis in China, Taiwan and Japan offering science related course. At least 6 universities from China(that includes taiwan and HK as well) are a whole lot better than the Malaysia ones.
Yes, obviously UK or US ones are better but not everyone can afford the high cost of educations to go UK or US. Going China or Singapore is one cheap alternatives of getting good education while without killing your budget. And if a student were to go China — they have the basics to learn science and maths in Mandarin. If a student were to go Singapore - the science and mathematics education they received in high school gives them the edge to study there.
Pardon my grammar mistake, its 6:40am and I am from Chinese school and is very proud of it
December 16th, 2008 at 6:39 am
I posted a longer and more refined version of it at my blog.
And link back to me please 
December 17th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
dude, i don’t want to criticise much but there seems to be a lil chauvinist behaviour in you that believes that the chinese language is superior. yes i can’t deny the fact that the japanese and germans continue to be strong in their sciences even though they are taught in their own mother tongues. and i can’t deny the fact that chinese language is increasing in popularity and might very well be the most spoken language soon.
BUT, the de facto leader in science and maths now is english. most scientific papers and journals are written in english. researchers from all over the world write their research papers in english. most scientific textbooks are in english
and sufficiently preparing our children to be proficient in english will allow our children to tap into this huge array of resources.
it’s not so much about how teaching science and maths in one’s own mother tongue will help one become stronger at it, but it’s about SUFFICIENTLY PREPARING the child to be COMPETENT in the future to make full use of these scientific resources that are only available in english.
and there is a reason why all these science research papers are published in english. the world economy is still dominated by english-speaking countries. and most of the top universities use english as the medium of instruction.
but most importantly, english is the de facto world language. all our world leaders use english to communicate in world conferences like the UN. so it is only natural this process continues to science and maths journals in our increasingly globalised world.
December 17th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
No hard feeling lah, just differences in perspectives. How we view the whole issue and how we were brought up influences our thoughts, ideas and views on specific issue.
We gotta yamcha sometime next year !
December 17th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
hey yea no hard feelings…just differences in perspectives….
u coming back during summer? must go yum cha k
December 18th, 2008 at 3:21 am
Sure. Summer
May like that, we shall talk more about politics
I feel we have changed so much since we depart and stepped out from the backgate of SMKBL
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Oh well, after reading ur blog, i feel a flame burning in my heart- not a flame of anger, but a flame to contribute more to Chinese education. Maybe i should have taken chinese as my major, chemistry as my minor so that in future it will be easy for me to teach. I studied in a Chinese Primary school, a government Secondary school and a Singapore junior college. 3 different languages, but I had no problem adapting to anyone of them. In fact, i appreciate a lot that i was exposed to education in different medium. Being born in a chinese-speaking family, if i were to learn the strange subjects (that’s what i thought when i was in Primary1)like maths and science, i would hv freaked out. Not even understanding the language, how do u expect the child to understand the subjects that are taught in that language? Not even knowing how to spell simple english words like “apple” properly(that s a typical primary one student’s standard, at least in rural area), how do u expect me to teacher’s explanation like “you have 6 apples, u distribute them to 2 frens, how many will each of ur fren get?” If not because of my tutor, I would not speak a single English word before i started primary school. See, medical schools in Russia require student to learn the language 1st. I am very glad that i was able to enjoy learning maths and science in chinese, which eventually sparked my interest in those subjects. I strongly believe that in primary education, it is important to spark the interest, familiarise the students to the basics first, before proceeding to using “foreign” language. Please, dong jiao zong, persist on this issue! However, those who doesnt speak chinese at home, please do not come chinese primary school because u r going to suffer, with the language that u nv learn.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:11 am
wow! this issue is striking many ppl strongly! haha….well the gov is gonna decide soon what is best for us….whatever it is, i just dun wan science n maths to be taught back in malay….i just feel that teaching sc n maths in eng just like singapore is the best way to improve the standard of english for our future generation
February 20th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
I strongly do not agree with the usage of countries like China, Japan and Germany as examples of countries that have achieved a lot in Science and Mathematics even without using English. Why?
The simple reason being these countries had a very early head start way back in late 19th century in their effort to modernise their country. During the 19th century, the discipline of Science and Maths were not that fast changing like now. Therefore they had the luxury of time to even translate both the discipline of that time into their own language.
But, with the current fast pace advancement in modern Science and Math, one can’t just simply rely solely on translated works because by the time the translation is done, it would have been obsolete by then. We would therefore be perpetually one or a few steps behind others in term of knowledge gained due to our ‘heavy’ dependence on resources translated from English into Malay or any other language.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
whether its Bahas Melayu, Mandarin, Tamil, the most important is we should be able to survive with the path you’ve chosen…rezeki is everywhere
July 10th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
My daughter is less than 2 years old and she can understand both English and Japanese, and later will introduce Malay, Mandarin and Cantonese.
http://daddyparentingtips.blogspot.com/2009/07/tip-161-reading-in-both-languages.html
I can’t see why we cannot take 1 step forward to integrate the BM textbooks few years back with the current English science and maths text books. Its a lot of effort, but why move backward instead of forward. We can allow students to use either English or BM to answer in the exams as long as the maths and science principles are correct.
Some good will surely come out of the dialectics at work between both languages instead of choosing either one. We need new advancements. We need Malaysia Boleh. Not some power struggle between languages.
When will Malaysia advance and not hold on to race and language as stumbling blocks but embrace our differences as advantages?