No DLP place for secondary school

As I write there are parents who are struggling to get their children, who have enjoyed lessons in the Dual Language Programme (DLP) throughout the six years of primary school and now are unable to secure a place in the secondary school assigned to them, despite having achieved high grades in the Tahap Penguasaan (TP) masteries.

We have advised parents who come to us to write officially to the principal with copies to the district education office, the state education office, the English Language Teaching Centre (ELTC) of the Ministry of Education (MOE) and SISPAA, and pray for a miracle to happen.

The MOE bears the responsibility of ensuring that every student who chooses the option to enrol in a DLP class in primary school should be provided a secured DLP place at secondary level. As the student elevates, “there is still six years for the secondary school to prepare for his/her arrival”, former senior education minister Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin tells PAGE. At this stage, the MOE cannot now claim that the student has poor Bahasa Melayu (BM) proficiency and thus has to sacrifice DLP. There are other ways of fixing it. As it is the MOE has failed to achieve the 60:40 arts:science ratio. Allow students who want to pursue DLP and not make BM an obstacle.

I would like to refer to “DLP now in 2,501 schools” (Star 14 March). At first glance, it appears that 25% of schools are offering DLP and the numbers are gradually rising. However, the devil is in the detail.

DLP did begin with 377 schools in 2016 although the target was 300. There was a spurt in 2017 to 1,190 schools when the Minister of Education then, Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid, allowed all applicant schools to be approved. There was a second spurt in 2020 when Sarawak sought for all its 1,034 primary schools to adopt DLP with Dr Maszlee Malik as the Minister of Education. However 132 schools opted out of DLP in 2020 and another 34 in 2022 of which the reasons are unknown. Excluding the spurts, the annual average growth of DLP in Sabah and the Peninsula between 2018 and 2024 is a mere 3.1%. Excluding Sarawak which has been allowed to conduct 100% DLP, only 8.4% of primary schools in Sabah and Peninsula enjoy DLP, which is alarming.

I refer also to “Ministry: Schools must fulfil criteria to offer DLP” (Star 29 July 2023) which reveals the number of classes and students enjoying DLP. The MOE states that “a total of 8,704 classes with 206,710 pupils are in the programme in primary schools while there are 9,398 classes with 255,316 students in secondary schools”. Effectively it means that the students enrolled in DLP are only 7.44% at primary and 12.17% at secondary levels which is far from the 25% we have been made to believe.

PAGE urges Members of Parliament, who have schools in their constituencies, to seek from the Minister of Education the number of students enrolled in DLP from 2016 to 2024 to have a more accurate picture in order to chart the growth trends of DLP.

National schools are notorious for their poor proficiency of the English language. If the handful of good schools are indeed made to sacrifice their DLP classes then every school should in turn become DLP schools to improve English language proficiency.