Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe by Email Education Ministry says:
The Education Ministry is staying firm with its decision to limit the number of subjects Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia candidates may take to 10.
The ministry has no plans to make special provision for SPM candidates wishing to take additional vernacular subjects.
Education director-general Tan Sri Alimuddin Mohd Dom said the 10-subject limit was a cabinet policy that could not be changed at this point. [which Dr Subra is a member of. Maybe the cabinet members not agreeable with his arguments]
He said schools where such vernacular subjects were taught could take the initiative to issue special certificates to students who took school examinations in vernacular subjects, for Form Five school leavers. [initiative? This guy must be joking!]
Alimuddin told the New Straits Times that these certificates could be produced by students when they wished to apply for jobs requiring proficiency in a vernacular subject. [Would employers accept it? Maybe need to have 3rd party certification?]
He said otherwise the students could use the school report cards which also show their proficiency in the vernacular subject. [but it won’t be standardised]
And thus the call for centralized coordination:
Schools which want to offer the vernacular language examinations for students unable to take these subjects at the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) level must be centrally coordinated to ensure standards.
Principal research fellow at the Institute of Ethnic Studies in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria said the Education Ministry must be in charge of this.
“The learning of community languages is our heritage and should be encouraged especially in line with 1Malaysia,” he said.
National Collaborative Parent-Teacher Association of Malaysia president Assoc Prof Datuk Mohd Ali Hasan said an agency within the ministry such as the Malaysian Examinations Syndicate (MES) should set the guidelines for these examinations.“The MES has to monitor the examinations set by schools to ensure quality as there would be no standardisation if all schools were to set their own papers,” he said.
… United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong) deputy chairman Chow Siew Hon said he disagreed with the suggestion as there would be no standardisation and consistency if schools came up with their own exams to evaluate students.
“My concern does not just revolve around the future of Chinese and Tamil languages but also how the ruling to limit students to taking only 10 subjects for SPM would affect students’ learning and decision when selecting the SPM subjects for the courses that they want to pursue at tertiary level,” he said.
But Dr Ramasamy was more direct:
Education director-general Alimuddin Mohd Dom has been told to resign over his failure to find an amicable solution to the ’10 subject’ Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examination controversy.
Penang Deputy Chief Minister 2 P Ramasamy slammed Alimuddin for suggesting the ‘bizarre’ idea for schools to draw up their own vernacular language examinations to overcome the hindrance to students caused by the 10-subject SPM cap.
Yesterday, Alimuddin said schools can conduct their own examinations on respective vernacular language subjects and issue certificates to the students to acknowledge their level of proficiency.
Commenting on this, Ramasamy said: “He is not listening to the people’s views and opinions.”
“He is trying to bulldoze an examination policy that would kill vernacular subjects from the country’s schooling system.
“He is incompetent and insensitive over the education needs of all Malaysians. He is not fit to head such an important portfolio,” he told reporters at the Penang state assembly.
Ramasamy plans to table a motion at the ongoing assembly sitting to pass a resolution calling on the federal government to scrap the 10-subject cap and increase it to minimum 12-subject cap.
He said only a minimum 12-subject cap would enable Indian and Chinese students to sit for their vernacular language and literature subjects for SPM.
He said the 10-subject grand plan would first discourage students from taking up their mother tongue subjects at the secondary and tertiary levels, which ultimately would create a severe shortage of teachers in vernacular schools.
Eventually, he said vernacular schools, including 534 existing Tamil schools, would have to close down due to dearth of teachers.
“The 10-subject magical formula is damaging to the Indian and Chinese communities. It’s an Umno grand plan to banish Tamil and Mandarin in the country,” added the former university lecturer.
Over the last 10 years, he said students taking up Tamil language and literature subjects for SPM have gone up, from 340 in 1998 to 4,391 in 2008. [can verify this or not?]
“It shows the interests of students to learn their own mother tongue has gone up,” he said.
More than 20 national Indian non-government organisations (NGOs) have already planned to stage a protest on Dec 12 at the Wisma Peladang in Petaling Jaya against the ministry’s attempt to introduce the 10-subject SPM formula.
Ramasamy welcomed the rally and hinted he would take part in it.
“Indians definitely need to hold a major protest against this infringement of our language rights,” he said.
Oh ya, MIC Youth submitted memorandum protesting the limit to DPM today.
Only 4391 took both Tamil and Tamil literature ? Even if we believe Rama, this is a very low number. I am sure the number would be even lower if we look at Science stream.
that’s about 10% of total indian students who took SPM (assuming 8% of total spm students are indians). if we consider either one subject, then should be closer to the 6000 that dr subra mentioned, meaning about 15%.
obviously it won’t be as high as chinese students who are strong encouraged to take up chinese language and literature, especially in secondary chinese schools.
so, i think considering the hurdles like lack of support, lack of teachers, and general negative perception that taking tamil won’t be helpful, 10-15% is good.