THE CASE FOR PROMOTING ENGLISH

Something is not right in our English language classrooms. Despite studying the language for nine years in the public school system, the majority of our high school students leave school unable to write or speak basic English. The situation gets worse when these students move on to local public universities. By then they are so uncomfortable using English they completely give up on it altogether.

The allowance and programme fees are fully funded by the government. Unemployed graduates get paid to learn new skills.

Is it any wonder that annual surveys carried out since 2005 have consistently listed poor English as one of the top five reasons why 40,000 to 60,000 graduates from our public universities fail to get jobs?

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  In 2004, there were 4,594 unemployed graduates of whom 163 were Chinese, 207 were Indians and 4,060 were Malays.
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  In 2005, there were 2,413 unemployed graduates of whom 31 were Chinese, 70 were Indians and 2,186 were Malays.
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  In 2006, there were 56,750 unemployed graduates of whom 1,110 were Chinese, 1,346 were Indians and 50,594 were Malays.
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  In 2007, there were 56,322 unemployed graduates of whom 1,348 were Chinese, 1,401 were Indians and 49,075 were Malays.
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  In 2008 (as of June) there were 47,910 unemployed graduates of whom 1,403 Chinese, 4,694 Indians and 41,813 were Malays.
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  By March 2009, Najib was talking about 60,000 unemployed graduates. This was more or less in line with the 57,701 graduate registrants on the Exchange in March 2009.
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  By October 2009, we were looking at 81,046 active graduate registrants on the Labour Exchange – and another 70,747 active registrants who are diploma holders.

The government keeps flip-flopping on measures to raise English proficiency in the country. They bow to pressure from anti-English groups. These groups have so little confidence in the strength and power of their own language that they consider any move to promote English as a threat to the national language. They regard English as the language of our former colonial masters. They label Malay Malaysians in particular who want their children to learn English well as traitors to their mother tongue. Such parochial thinking shows they are the ones still clinging on to colonial times while the rest of us have long moved on to 21st century forward thinking.

This video shows why the rest of the world wants to learn English. It's about time Malaysians do the same. There's a lot of catching up to do.

A shorter version of the video appears on the TED TALKS channel on YouTube.

Related Article:

TIME OUR LANGUAGE POLICY MAKERS REMOVE THEIR BLINKERS 

LABOUR PAIN FOR THE JOBLESS

Thousands of Filipinos queueing up outside a mall during a job fair on May Day. (Reuters)

MayDay! MayDay! This is the SOS distress cry that's reverberating around the world – from North Africa which has an unemployment rate of 10.3% to Australia with 5.2%. This surely must be the longest labour pain on record – more than a year and still no signs of abating. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has warned that 50 million people would lose their jobs this year if the global recession continues.

There’s not much for workers to cheer about on this day. If anything, hundreds of thousands are taking to the streets across Asia and Europe to protest against job cuts, wage cuts, loss of compensation and employment benefits. In Germany, an estimated 69,000 jobs were axed in March alone. In the US, close to 700,000 people joined the ranks of the unemployed in the same period.

Protestors in Moscow call for a return to communism. (AFP)

In Singapore, the jobless rate for March hit a 5-year high of 4.8% with 12,600 redundancies in the first quarter of 2009. In Malaysia, the situation is not much better with more than 32,000 job losses between October 2008 to April 2009. While all sectors are affected by the job cuts and retrenchment, voluntary or otherwise, it is the less skilled, less educated and older workers who are the most vulnerable. Even those in their 40s do not feel secure about their jobs. Once they are out of the work force, it's not easy get back in unless the economy improves.


Singaporean, Gilbert Goh, is no stranger to this predicament. "At the age of 47, I too face mammoth pressure in securing employment in a hiring practice that borders on discriminatory". In the Klang Valley, the number of older taxi-drivers has surged, as has the number of sole proprietorships and online businesses. These are among the few options open to older retrenched workers in Malaysia. For others like Tony Loh, 50, busking in the busy Orchard Road underpath helps to bring in some much needed cash to feed the family.


In tough times like these, pride should be tossed aside. As long as it's an honest living, we can hold ourselves with dignity in what we have to do to make ends meet. The key is to remain resilient and resourceful. The current economic downturn offers plenty of lessons to be learned and new opportunities to take advantage of. Let's not waste it.