DLP students made victims in education ministry’s latest rules
As we had expected, the Ministry of Education (MoE) released the so-called new and improved Dual Language Programme (DLP) guidelines or Surat Pekeliling Ikhtisas (SPI) Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia (KPM) Bilangan (Bil.) 5 Tahun 2024: Garis Panduan Pelaksanaan DLP dated March 19, 2024, which has superseded all earlier guidelines.
Clause 12.2.8 has been added to the new guidelines dictating that schools must have one mandatory non-DLP class for Year One and Form One. Whether or not a parent desires it for their child is irrelevant. The parents’ wish, which is the spirit of DLP, has been blatantly ignored and quashed.
Two elite schools — namely the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (the alma mater of the prime minister) and Tunku Kurshiah College (the alma mater of the prime minister’s wife) — intend to ignore clause 12.2.8 and proceed with the status quo as it has been from the start.
The new guidelines explicitly exclude Sarawak, which gets to maintain its SPIKPM Bil. 7 Tahun 2019: Pelaksanaan DLP Sarawak Mulai Tahun 2020. It exclusively allows all its primary schools to conduct DLP in full since 2020, which means that the medium of instruction of all science and mathematics classes is the English language. The Education Department of Sarawak, with the full support of the Ministry of Education, Innovation and Talent Development (MEITD) Sarawak, has permission from the MoE to do so — the only state to enjoy this privilege.
In February 2024, the MoE had made a statement saying, “No student assessments are needed for the DLP programme”. However, in March, when school reopened for the new academic year, six-year-olds were subjected to assessments in writing, oral skills and reading to determine whether they would be allocated to a DLP class. Worse, pupils who had completed DLP from Years One to Six have been forced to proceed to a non-DLP class in Form One because they do not meet the newly imposed grades for Bahasa Melayu (BM).
In March 2024, the MoE “confirmed there are no plans to allocate more funds to conduct the DLP in the future”. MEITD, however, in April 2024, revealed that Sarawak had been given a budget of RM18 million for DLP. It appears now that Sabah and the peninsula were not budgeted for DLP.
Parents in Sabah and the peninsula have been held to ransom.
While Sarawak has held to the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) as regards independence in education, Sabah has taken a more conservative stance. Under MA63, Sarawak had requested for the Sarawak National Education Policy to be safeguarded while North Borneo, which later became Sabah, requested to put educational matters under state control and maintain its own existing educational system. Sabah does not have its own education ministry, unlike Sarawak.
But Sarawak is not without its challenges: 45% of its English, science and mathematics primary school teachers are non-option, that is, they are not trained to teach these subjects, similarly with 24% of its secondary school teachers; science laboratories throughout the state are dilapidated and in poor condition with 24 secondary schools without pure science laboratories and 585 primary schools without science rooms and further lacking in consumables as well as technicians; and there is a low enrolment of 32% in STEM at Form Four, which does not augur well moving forward.
Despite the endless and exhausting obstacles ahead, Sarawak has made strides in overcoming these hurdles. It holds symposiums to share best practices in the teaching and learning of the English language, it has collaborated with Singapore on the pedagogy of mathematics, 10,000 Raspberry Pi computers have been distributed to all its 1,265 primary schools for pupils to learn to code, programme and conduct research without internet accessibility, STEM trailblazer events are held to excite students to showcase innovative projects, teaching and learning resources published by National Geographic Learning are being supplied, Unicef is bringing in the Future Skills For All (FS4A) collaboration for more ICT-related skills starting in June, and it is undertaking major school redevelopment projects such as SK Ulu Segan, Bintulu, which was crocodile-infested when it floods and SK Merpati Jepang, Kuching.
Sarawak has vowed to make DLP a roaring success and is adamant that it will not turn back. Timely and swift interventions will be imposed on students when deviations appear. It is confident that DLP is sustainable, hence the care and effort put into it. The workforce needs to be industry-ready when the time comes.
Madani is the Malay acronym for SCRIPT which stands for sustainability, care and compassion, respect, innovation, prosperity and trust. The education minister would do well to reflect on what has transpired on her watch as regards the English language and STEM. DLP will Sustain if she emulates Sarawak, shows Care and Compassion to our children, shows Respect to parents, enhance Innovation in science, Malaysia will gain Prosperity when students are proficient in STEM English and gain Trust from parents that she acts in our children’s best interests.
Sarawak has truly embraced and elevated Madani to a higher level, unlike Sabah and the peninsula where the education minister merely pays lip service.
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