Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin unveiled the country’s new education blueprint today, a process which began last October when the government embarked on a national dialogue with the aim of revamping the education system.

Members of the public will be able to view the blueprint during open days in the next three months. The final plan will be presented to cabinet in December.The full blueprint can be downloaded here.

Salient points

Language

-All Year 1 to Year 3 students to undergo Literacy and Numeracy screening (Linus) twice a year in both English and Bahasa Malaysia (currently Linus tests are done only for BM).

-After-school remedial classes for Years 4-6 (to phase out ‘remove’ classes for those with problems with English and BM after Year 6 by 2017).

-All English teachers must pass Cambridge placement tests within the next two years.

-Accelerated pathway for high performers: 5 years (instead of 6) for UPSR and 4 years (instead of 5) for SPM.

-Compulsory English Literature module in secondary school.

International standards

Benchmark mathematics and science tests on the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) and Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (Timss).

-11 years of compulsory schooling (up from 6 years); by 2020, all school leavers have SPM or equivalent qualification.

-All special needs students in equipped special schools by 2025.

-Each child to learn a third language by 2025 (starting with Chinese, Tamil and Arabic). Spanish, French and Japanese will be offered later.

Oh No.....My children future 3rd language will be Chinese????





This post has been edited by Edward612: Nov 17 2013, 01:06 PM

ok. I wonder why don't they stop as long as other race master the basic read and write? instead they like force ppl to master many thing in PMR and SPM. Worse is that education system migrate back to bm.

Does Bahasa Indonesia count as Malay? Or is it considered a separate language? There are many words which are spelled and expressed differently. See examples in this link ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of..._and_Indonesian

Even if BM is lumped together with BI, I still don't see how significant BM would be despite the large number of speakers because Indonesia is not an economic powerhouse or scientifically and technologically advanced nation. We don't send our children to study abroad in Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Medan, Palembang, or Bali.

Even as a Malay I don't really see the point of BM as an academic or business language. Unless you're talking about setting up business over in Indonesia where you'd need to be able to at least get the gist of your meaning across, which BM would help with. Indonesia might or might not be an economic powerhouse in the coming decade. All of the universities I've been to or have worked at use English as the medium for academic materials and heck, even their research.

red streak,

Do you have any idea about the education policy in Indonesia? Are science and mathematics taught in Indonesian or English?

science and mathematics and all books in bahasa indonesia, learning english also part of the education as well as native language (in certain province). learning english in school for basic conversation, but each student can enter private school if they want more expert in english.

Well the MOE do ignore what Mahathir said last time... about English translate to BM story...
No one ever in this world will treat BM as international use language... for 1 reason... English is worldwide... Mandarin is picking up... BM going down...
You go to western country... try speak malay... they dont even understand... try ask a foreigner come here... they speak english... we understand...
MOE say BM is more important than english?? wow... very good...

i went oversea,never spoke malay,juz said im coming from malaysia,they ask me,WHERE IS MALAYSIA?

Bahasa Malaysia is only useful in Malaysia,not other country

Every country and race should have a language that they can use. While the usefullness of BM may be debated, I think as Malaysians, we should not always mempersendakan BM too much. I mean would u really like it if Malays cannot speak BM? Come on la, give every race a chance to know their own mother tongue, and as Malaysians, the 1957 has acknowledged BM as the national language. In the meantime, everyone should learn their own mother tongue as well as English.

While I second what you said, the point is the Malay language should not take precedence over English as the international language of trade & commerce, science & technology and diplomacy. Hence its official status and use should be debated. Singapore's national language is BM as per the constitution but its official language for the public and private sectors is still English. In spite of this, the Malays in Singapore are still able to converse well in BM because mother tongue or bilingual education is strongly enforced by the PAP government. So what makes you think that when BM loses its importance at the official and national level, the Malays would not be able to speak their own mother tongue that they speak at home with their loved ones everyday? Chinese and Tamil are not recognised over here. How is it that majority of the Chinese and Indians are still able to converse in their own mother tongues?

This post has been edited by samteng: Sep 7 2013, 08:24 PM

Language... let's understand one thing call economic power...
Why nowadays people learn Japanese and Korean language despite the population of Japanese and Korean is not a lot in earth?
Does anybody try to think about this matter...
In my understanding, it's the economic power especially people are fan of
- JPop, KPop, Anime, Manga (Ayumi, Gangnam, Gundam, Naruto, etc)
- Technological advance (Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Sony, Samsung, Kia, Hyundai, etc)
- Strong present of Japanese and Korean company in foreign country (When ppl work in Japanese/Korean company, it's much better if the staff can communicate in Japanese/Korean language)

Now, if the government want the world to learn BM language, then ask why would people want to learn BM language?
So far, the only reason people want to learn BM language are:
- Learn for fun as to communicate in Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia
- Learn to do business in Malaysia especially dealing with government people
Is this two reason strong enough to get the world attention to learn BM?

In Malaysia, people have to learn BM as to communicate with our Malay friends as Malay people are the majority people in the country.
So, if one day, Bangalla form the majority people in the country, then the guess is that people have to start to learn bengali language...

When I went to Indonesia, I can use BM to communicate with Indonesian counterparts. But of course, some words cannot be apply, but it's easily adaptable.

This post has been edited by arthurlwf: Sep 8 2013, 12:46 AM

sigh....
later when we blame chinese for being lack of patriotic, u all blame us
no wonder chinese being marginalized, because they choose to marginalized by only learning english and mandarin
esp when ts use inappropriate word like useless or useful, im sure there is more suitable word like beneficial / non beneficial
ts think with the mind people like u, people wanna vote for PR? sigh.......

This post has been edited by seijiseimura84: Sep 8 2013, 02:21 AM

children today are not taught the importance of language. to many people, language is just a tool to communicate. That, is very wrong.

we think in languages. to understand someone's language is to understand someone's culture, it helps build a stronger bond between people and encourages tolerance and understanding. when you can speak malay well, you will notice the malays treat you nicer, you understand them better, the nights out are happier

now then of course, hopefully someday Malaysia will make it compulsory for all to learn English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. You have no idea how much of an advantage that gives you in the future.

Before talking about whether one language is useful or not....i think most importantly we should talk about unity in the first place
When i read all the response in this thread.....all i can see is kiasu attitude... All only think of self success.....rather success of whole malaysian or as a whole, even neglecting about pride on our own national language.

How can i describe best about chinese...Imagine this....lets say that majority of class 90% decided to go to pulau pangkor, but 10 % decided to go to genting higland. Even though majority has decided, the remaining 10% still insist going to genting higland. When holiday comes, the 2 group go seperated...one group go to pangkor, whereas the other group go to genting. Just try assuming urself as 90% of the student....what is ur viewed on these 10%? I guess u call can feel...thats right...thats how also malay felt on chinese.

So why blame 90%....when 10% choose to isolate themselves....choose to marginalized themselves

if people around you use the language, it is important.

how many of such thread has TS opened? i am getting sick of it.

10%? Please scroll to the top and check how to poll in this thread is going. 10%? Where did you get the 10%?

This is exactly the whole point of this thread that some people are missing. How far do you define this "people around you". Is your world limited to 3 houses around your own? Your "taman"? Your town? The state? The country? The entire world?

THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT. The people around the world seems to have voted on English and Mandarin, but here we are, in our own little corner, stubbornly going our own way ...

im only giving an example....
regardless....most forumer here are mostly chinese

Regardless of race if we are still Malaysian. Therefore, IMHO every Malaysian should have at least a basic understanding of BM and how to utilize it in the time of need.