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No, it is not a betrayal! |
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Posted by admin
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Tuesday, 30 June 2009 12:29 |
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Art Harun By a guest writer, John Baptist* "Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education.” The late President John F. Kennedy uttered these prescient words.
I would only hasten to add the word “quality” before education in that phrase acknowledging though that JFK probably saw no need to do so, assuming quality to be a given. In the current context of our country however, I see the necessity to emphasise the word quality. Not the number of degrees or the variety available but the quality! Education should be formulated to ensure that our nation’s competitiveness in the context of a borderless global economy is never compromised, at any cost. It is with this mind that I would like to address this area of significant concern - should it be English or Bahasa Melayu/Malaysia for Science and Mathematics? This question must be examined in the context of the long-term objectives of our nation, chief amongst which is our nation’s sustained competitiveness. It must also be borne in mind that this question concerns only two subjects out of a possible ten subjects (based on the restrictions the Government is planning to impose). READ MORE HERE
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1. Get those subjects' text materials translated to bahasa melayu and the translation costs bore by the government. Arrange them side-by-side, i.e. english-bahasa Melayu. Others can even translate them to mandarin or tamil, sponsored by private organisations.
2. Make it available in the net in PDF & HTML form, and also with audio and power points teaching aids. This way the costs is not and issue, and everyone can read them from the home computer or download them from the net to assist their learning of the subjects.
3. The government can make available "learning stations" equiped with computers and print support in all the rural areas. To help the poor students, the print costs can be partly sponsored by local political parties or organisations or subsidized.
This is just a rough idea, and can be refined to make it more effective. This will also increase the computer literacy of the population, thus achieving the learning of english, cost effectiveness, efficient distribution of learning materials and increasing ITC literacy objectives - killing four birds with one stone.