MBMMBI: Tawaran Baru Sistem Pendidikan Malaysia

In July 2009, the Minister of Education, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced that PPSMI is made redundant and to be replaced with a new policy, i.e., the Empowering Malay Language, Strengthening English Language Policy (Memperkasa Bahasa Malaysia, Memperkukuh Bahasa Inggeris- MBMMBI) (Ministry of Education, 8th July 2009). In the press statement which was made on 8th of July 2009, the MoE stated that Mathematics and Sciences subjects are to be taught using Bahasa Malaysia in all national schools, and in Chinese and Tamil in National Type Chinese Schools and National Type Indian Schools respectively.


This new policy will be implemented in 2012 where it will be carried out for Year One and Year Four in primary schools, and Form One and Form Four in secondary school. This staged implementation is to ensure that the current students who are in PPSMI are able to adapt to the new policy. Hence, until the last cohort of PPSMI is to finish their SPM, Mathematics and Science will be taught and assessed in Malay as well as English. This ‘soft-landing’ mechanism will be implemented where both Bahasa Malaysia and English will be used in teaching and learning process in the classroom as well as in the examinations. All public examinations will use both Bahasa Malaysia and English until 2016, 2013 and 2015 for UPSR, PMR and SPM, respectively. Right after those periods, all teaching and learning of Mathematics and Science as well as the assessments will be carried out in Bahasa Malaysia (see http://www.moe.gov.my/?id=169&aid=567 ).


There are a few reasons for the change in language policy in Malaysian education. Among others were the problems in implementing the PPSMI policy itself. The Ministry of Education Malaysia, in an observation in 2008 found:


1. Just a small number of teachers using 100% English in teaching Mathematics and Science;
2. The quality of the products, i.e., the students, has declined as the percentage of students who get A for both Mathematics and Science declined;
3. The gap between the achievement of rural areas students and urban students has widened during the implementation of PPSMI.


The results of these are more apparent as Trends in Mathematics and Science Study 2007 Report shows that Malaysian students are ranked lower in 2007 as compared in 2003 where we were ranked at number 20 for Science, and 10th for Mathematics. But in 2007, we were ranked at number 21 for Science, and 20th for Mathematics. (The full report can be viewed at http://timss.bc.edu/TIMSS2007/release.html ).


Thus, the new policy Empowering Malay Language, Strengthening English Language Policy (Memperkasa Bahasa Malaysia, Memperkukuh Bahasa Inggeris- MBMMBI) was introduced to overcome the problem. The first implementation of the policy involves the additional time allocated for both Bahasa Malaysia and English. As for English, 330 minutes are located for Year One, Two and Three while 300 minutes are allocated for Year Four, Five and Six. In National Type Schools, the time for English has been made doubled and for secondary schools, additional time is allocated to make it seven periods a week, compared to five periods previously. This is to ensuring more contact hours between teachers and students.


Under this new policy, Children Contemporary Literature Programme is introduced to stimulate interest of reading among young children. Grammar will be given emphasizes on the English lessons and more Science and Technology elements will be included in the English new syllabus.

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This is a part of my term paper for Edu 701 (Education and Human Development), sent to Dr. Zainab Noor in Sem 1, 2009/2010.