1. The Impact of English on Educational Policies
and Practices in Malaysia
Ria Hanewald
Resumed by Dian Eka Rachmawati
SN: . 1705086023
2. Introduction
• Malaysia is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-lingual
country.
• Bahasa Malay becoming the national language.
• English served as common language among the diverse
populace.
• The need for English as universal language in multi-lingual
Malaysia combined with the paradigm shift of English.
3. The Impact of English on Educational Policies
and Practices in Malaysia
Background Information
• Malaysia is located in the Southeast Asian region
with its neighbors Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia
and Brunei.
• The total population according to the 2010
Population and Housing Census of Malaysia was
28.3 million, of which 1.6 million live in its capital
Kuala Lumpur.
• Malaysia is governed by a parliamentary
democracy.
• The major languages are Bahasa Melay, which is
the national language, Chinese and Tamil dialects
(Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2013).
4. The Impact of English on Educational
Policies and Practices in Malaysia
Background Information
• The main tensions are between the nation-state’s
desire to assert its national identity and unity
through Bahasa Malaysia.
• The growing need for English to facilitate economic
development in global markets and
• The increasing concerns for minority language rights
and greater tolerance towards multilingualism.
5. Malaysia’s Education and Language
Policies
Past Education and Language Policies
• The language education polices of English, Bahasa
Malaysia and other minority languages have been
inextricably intertwined over the last 60 years.
• A timeline of these policies while explaining the
reasons for their emergence and subsequent
reversals.
• During British colonialism (before 1957), English was
the language of government, education and
business.
6. Malaysia’s Education and Language
Policies
Past Education and Language Policies
• After Malaysia’s independence in 1957, where
English was rejected as it represented the
language of colonial powers.
• In 1951, a few years before Independence, the
British government had conducted
an in-depth study of education in Malaysia,
7. Malaysia’s Education and Language
Policies
Current Education and Language Policies
• As indicated, the Malaysian government suddenly
announced in 2002 that the teaching of Science
and Mathematics (Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran
Sains dan Matematik Dalam Bahasa Inggeris)
abbreviated as PPSMI would be conducted in the
English language from 2003 onwards.
• Poor English skills amongst the population were a
problem that started in the 70s according to Sen
(2011).
8. Malaysia’s Education and Language
Policies
Current Education and Language Policies
• ‘bahasa rojak’ or ‘salad language’ in
Malaysia (Zimmer, 2006).
• As the country will have to prepare a
workforce that is able to communicate
within a global environment (Gill, 2005).
9. Malaysia’s Education and Language
Policies
Future Education and Language Policies Development
• There is an intense and very public debate about the
role of English and the proficiency levels of students,
teachers and the general population in Malaysia.
• For example, it was revealed by the Education
Minister II Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh
that “…a third of English Language teachers in the
country have been classified
as ‘incapable’ or ‘unfit’ to teach the subject in
schools…” (The Star, 11 September
2013) and had been sent to courses to improve their
proficiency.
10. Malaysia’s Education and Language Policies
• Future Education and Language Policies
Development
• This was revealed after 60,000 English Language
Teachers had sat the English Language Cambridge
Placement Test in 2012, with 70 % performing
poorly.
• In the same vein, THE STRAITS TIMES (12
September 2013) reported that only 20,000 (of the
60,000) teachers passed the test, with the ministry
having trained 5000 teachers and intending to train
another 9000 soon to improve English proficiency
standards (The Star, 2013)
11. Malaysia’s English Education Practice
The Education System
• Preschool, primary and secondary education
is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of
Education (MoE).
• However, tertiary education is under the
jurisdiction of the Ministry of Higher
Education (MoHE).
• The Education Act of 1965 covers pre-school,
primary, secondary and post-secondary
education und the national education system
(Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2011).
12. Malaysia’s English Education Practice
• The Various School Types
• Initially, religious (Islamic) ‘Hut’ schools were the
earliest form of education in Malaysia.
• They were followed by secular schools under the
British colonial government.
• Some were boarding schools modeled after the
British practice.
• One of the oldest is the Penang Free School which
was founded in 1816.
• Several Christian denominations (Anglican,
Josephian, Lasallian Brothers, Marist Brothers,
Methodist, Roman Catholic, and Seventh – day
Adventist) started mission schools.
13. Malaysia’s English Education Practice
The Various School Types
• Under the British colonial government large numbers
of immigrants from China and India arrived. Chinese
and the Tamil school were founded by their respective
communities to maintain cultural identity and
language.
• They established vernacular schools that taught the
curricula of their home countries in Mandarin and
Tamil respectively.
• Others believe that the British were indifferent to the
educational needs of the Chinese and Tamil
communities as they believed that they would return
to their homelands, once they had made enough
money in Malaysia (Muhrtz, Abdullah, & Jan, 2011).
14. Malaysia’s English Education Practice
The Curriculum
• The school year is divided into two semesters,
with the first one running from the
beginning of January to the end of June and
the second running from July to the end
of December.
• Malaysia adopted the British education
system’s Higher School Certificate (A-level)
and School Certificate (O-level) examinations.
• Later, they were replaced by the Malaysian
Higher School Certificate (STPM) and the
Malaysian Certificate of Education (SPM)
respectively.
15. Malaysia’s English Education Practice
• The Curriculum
• Centralized examinations are held at the end of
Year VI (primary school when the students are
12–13 years old); Form III and From V (secondary
school, when the students are 15 and 17 years old
respectively).
• The latter are documented in the National
Education Philosophy (NEP), which aims to
produce Malaysian citizens who are balanced,
skilful and value the nation’s aspiration for unity.
• Curriculum development is centralized under the
Ministry of Education through its Curriculum
Development Centre (CDC) oversees the
development of the pre-school, primary and
secondary school curriculum.
16. The English Language Subject
• Prior to 2003, English was taught as a subject in a
traditional style that is, learning about the language
rather than learning through the language.
• Although this advocated methodology provided an
integrated approach with elements of
communicative language teaching (CLT), students
were not taught how to use the language for
communication.
• According to the integrated curriculum for primary
schools, students in national schools should receive a
total of 210–240 min of English per
week.
17. The English Language Subject
• At vernacular schools, they should receive 90
min per week. However, Azman’s, 1999 study of
400 residents of four rural communities revealed
large discrepancies.
• For example, the Indians were the most
multilingual while a number of the Malays and
the Chinese did not speak any English at all.
• The 20 interviewed English teachers used
translation as a strategy in teaching English as it
helped their students to understand the
meaning more quickly.
18. The English Language Subject
• Two of twelve schools had a computer lab but
the computers were rarely used for teaching
and learning.
• One school had CD-Roms for students to learn
English, Bahasa Melayu and Maths.
Nationwide, 90 % of primary and 66 % of
secondary schools had no Internet access
(Azman, 2006).
• The 2002 language policy to teach Science
and Mathematics in English created
significant pedagogical challenges for the
teachers of these subject areas as Othman
(2008) found in her study of 53 science
secondary school science teachers in
Selangor, Malaysia
19. Conclusion
• This paper outlined the key problems in language
planning and language policy for
Malaysia as the competing roles of the national
language, the international language and the
minority languages.
• Language policies in Malaysia have seen several
reversals over the last decades
with Bahasa Malay being mandated as the official
language but being overshadowed by English due
to its economic and social benefits.
20. Conclusion
• The disadvantages of a top-down language policy
and the desired unification can in effect cause
inequity and further divide between ethnic groups
where the language of the dominant group is
enforced (Symaco, 2010).
• there are three major issues that contribute to the
lack of English proficiency in Malaysian schools
students.
• Firstly, the short weekly time allocation for learning
English that does not allow sufficient exposure to
the language;
21. Conclusion
• secondly, the focus on grammar and the
mechanics of the language to pass exams that
neglect communicative practice of English;
and
• finally, the interference from Bahasa Malaysia
with reliance on translation and dictionary
use to comprehend English texts.
• The challenge of teaching English in Malaysia
is therefore situated in the meaningful use of
the language in the classroom rather than the
heavy emphasis on drilling mechanical
aspects of English into students to enable
them to pass examinations.
