"Abang2, boleh tolong ajarkan ina subjek sains ni tak?"

Terasa seluar kaki ditarik manja ketika terdengar suara kecil itu. Baru berumur 11 tahun dan akan menduduki UPSR tahun depan.

Maka bermulalah sesi tusyen sains. But there was something terribly wrong and disturbing. Ina langsung tidak memahami subjek tersebut. Dia hanya boleh belajar didalam bilik darjah bersama guru,

"Itupun kalau cikgu tu nak ajar lah," Ujar Ina.

Dan dia tak boleh nak ulangkaji sendiri subjek tersebut kerana dia memang lemah English, sekolah kampung je. Di akhir sesi tusyen, saya dapat merasakan tahap inputnya di sekolah tak melebihi 20%! Bloody horrible.

Ok, ini mungkin isu lapuk. Tapi percaya atau tidak, isu ini masih hangat diperdebatkan di kedai2 kopi mahupun di kenduri2 kahwin.

PPSMI.

To me, the government's action to revert back the lesson to our mother's toungue is no longer an option.
I know, the purpose of teaching of Science and Maths in English (first implemented in 2003) is to increase the standard of our educational system. But did it succeed?

Yes, but only for those who already have a strong basic in english. For those who are not, what do they get? None!

Correct me if I am wrong, to me, the purpose of education is to decrease the sosio-economic gap among the Malaysian citizen. Ironically, PPSMI counteracts the purpose itself!

To those who still supports PPSMI, I know your points. Once, I was a supporter too. I know the benefit of it and it helps in giving me an advantage in pursuing my Australian foundation programme. Before you want to comment anything, just sit down for a while and think. Put in another person's shoes like the not-so-fortunate ones who live in kampungs. Do they benefit?

Some of you may say,

"Hey, I learned Maths and Science in English and I still manage to get an 'A'!"

Ok, lets talk about this.

My mother once had a chat with a person working in the Ministry of Education. She said the passing marks for Science in 2005 PMR (my PMR) was 56% (even the questions were extremely easy)!

So if you get an 'A' for science in PMR, don't get cocky because maybe your marks was just 57%. Ponder, what will happen to our self-acclaimed high quality education.

As you can see, implementation of PPSMI will clearly destroy our very own educational system together with its purpose. Now, the Ministry will revert back to Bahasa in 2012 hoping it would remedy the damage that they have done. To me, PPSMI is an elitist idea. It only benefit certain people.

Let the politicians decide how we may live with dignity, now and always (A. Samad Said).