| Roundtable Discussion on PPSMI |
| Written by SEDAR Institute | ||||||||
| Friday, 11 September 2009 04:02 | ||||||||
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A roundtable discussion on Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris (PPSMI) was held on 17 July 2009 (Friday) at Wawasan Open Univeristy K.L. Roundtable Discussion on PPSMI Friday 17 July 2009 3:00p.m. – 6:00p.m. Seminar Room 1&2, Wawasan Open University, Kuala Lumpur Regional Centre For the PPSMI roundtable discussion, there were three speakers who presented on the subject of PPSMI. The first speaker was Prof. Dr. Kuldip Kaur who expressed that irrespective of whatever language that was used we have to increase the quality of education in our schools. We should not adopt the prescriptivist method where there is only one way and one answer for everything. Schools would also have to be less exam-oriented and instead of emphasizing on quantitative results we should focus on quality. The second speaker was Prof. Dr. John Arul Phillips who presented his view that the method of teaching adopted by us is still very orthodox. To him the trouble with our education system is that it is influenced by political considerations and the short span of time in which decisions are made. The education system is designed and implemented without taking into account the relevant conditions of the various communities in Malaysia. The system that we have now is also very centralized and there is a need to move away from that. The third speaker was Dr. Ganakumaran Subramaniam who in his presentation said that the reason the government chose to use English was because it wanted to build human capital. He said that it become a problem because not everyone was committed. Further problems occurred because there was no change of methodology and that though facilities were made available they were not utilized. While other countries have followed Malaysia in using English our government has decided to reverse this system. To him the usage of English would not cause people to abandon their mother tongue. It was also said that there is now no longer any incentive to learn English and the gap between the haves and the haves-not will widen. At the end of the roundtable discussion recommendations made by the participants were listed down. Available document for download: http://sedar.org.my/documents/event/roundtable-discussion-on-ppsmi/download-2.html
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