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Don’t be selfish about English – Hussaini Abdul Karim

February 23, 2016

I refer to last week’s reports of a top-ranked Malaysian scientist who has thrown his weight behind a coalition to abolish the dual language programme (DLP), Putrajaya’s latest initiative to improve English-language skills among students.

Prof Datuk Wan Ramli Wan Daud, president, former founder, director and principal research fellow, Fuel Cell Institute, UKM, professor of chemical engineering of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) was quoted as saying “DLP would see students learning Science and Mathematics in English just to increase their proficiency in the language”.

“This, he said, was wrong, as students should be taught Science and Mathematics in their mother tongue.”

He also said: “It is more about being able to create new scientific knowledge from a deeper understanding of Science and Mathematics which can only be achieved by learning it in the mother tongue.”

I doubt very much on the accuracy of the claim he makes here.

Did the professor learn Science and Mathematics and later chemical engineering in his mother tongue? I think the answer is “no” and, would the professor be as good as he is had he learned whatever he had learned about Science up to the highest level in the mother tongue.

He, having studied in English mostly, is obviously better off than most scientists in this country as he is bilingual, to say the least, has access to both science books in Malay and in English which allows him to further his knowledge. I am also not the least surprised if he prefers Science books written in English than those translated into Bahasa Melayu.

I am sure, in the course of him training and teaching local students from first degree up to doctorate levels at the university he is attached to, he must have many times cursed and hoped that his students knew English and he perhaps cursed and hoped that English was taught in national schools.

Yes, he gave some examples of excellent and outstanding students, some are true-blue alumni of UKM, whom he taught where some have made a name for themselves in the international academic circles but how many of them out of the hundreds or the thousands, whom he taught and trained, achieved such accolades – 2%, 3%, 4% or 5%?

Even 5% would be at the very most and they can be counted with the number of fingers but thousands more, he said, did not make that grade. Try comparing that with the proportion of students taught in English worldwide who made the grade. He would probably need a calculator to count them.

Even China, Japan and South Korea have taken into English in a big way, especially in developing their automotive industry in spite of Mandarin, Japanese and Korean being “bigger” languages than Bahasa Melayu.

The latter two countries have brought in the world’s top engineers and designers of automobiles from top car companies from the US, Germany, Italy, UK, France, such as Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Porsche, Ford, General Motors, among others, and they are all communicating in English and they include the Japanese engineers and designers.

Early this millennium, I was appointed a member of a team tasked with setting up a local private university to offer arts, science and engineering courses, and we had some well-known universities from the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as at our twinning partners.

Part of the studies, for all the degrees to be offered, were to be undertaken here and the remaining part at our partners’ campuses and the degrees were to be awarded by our respective “twinning” partner universities.

Among the ministry’s condition was the need for us to have local academic staff as we were not allowed to have more than a certain number of foreign academic staff seconded from our twinning partners.

We interviewed many local qualified and experienced holders of master’s and doctorate degrees and despite their impressive credentials, many local applicants, mostly non-Malays, were appointed. The Malays weren’t simply because their command of English wasn’t good enough. Fewer than 10% of the Malays were taken.

I notice many English-speaking foreigners or native speakers of English do not understand Malaysian English when spoken with the local accent (I am not referring to “Manglish”).

Since the degrees were all awarded by the respective foreign twinning universities, we have to make sure that the standard of English of all our graduates is accepted internationally.

Going back to our local Science graduates, if one goes deeper into the matter, I think a BM-speaking scientist, who has a PhD in chemistry, for example, may not be able to communicate, converse or exchange ideas effectively with a scientist from a foreign country with a similar or an equivalent qualification and one who uses English because, if I take carbon monoxide, for example, our students know it as karbon monoksida.

Would they be able to understand each other? Mind you, that’s just one example and I am sure, when those people talk Science, many other chemicals, solids, liquids and gasses, among others, are used and the English names or terms are mostly, if not all, different or not exactly the same in Bahasa Malaysia, whether slightly or totally.

Bahasa Malaysia and English spellings are also different. The thing that they both would probably be clear about is only when the names, terms, symbols or formulas written on paper. Undertaking such conversations, discussions or debates, as I said earlier, would be cumbersome and not effective.

Many cannot differentiate between the words “affect” and “effect”, “compliment” and “complement” and “access” and “excess”, to name just a few.

The professor’s comments and arguments make one feels sad and frustrated.

Internationally acclaimed scientists like him must get out of the cocoon they are in, open up and look around with wide eyes otherwise, they will not know what actually is happening. I wonder if he realises that as at now, more than 400,000 of our graduates, mostly Malays, are unemployed and the number is growing.

While I do not totally disagree with his view, I am also puzzled by his later declaration that “the reason you need English is because the major scientific journals are now owned by English-speaking countries”.

If that is the case, how do you make our students, including Science students, understand English if programmes such as the DLP are rejected?

DLP, as we understand, is not a programme like the Policy to Teach Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI). It is definitely not a rebranding of PPSMI as the professor suggests.

DLP is supposed to make our students know and understand English so that they will achieve a standard that is acceptable at the local and international levels. Many are also suggesting that subjects like history and literature should be taught in English and this, I believe, is being considered by the policymaker, i.e. education minister.

Now, if university dons like him insist on using the mother tongue to teach Mathematics and Science without supplementing it with a programme for students to learn English, how do they expect our graduates to understand scientific journals in English?

Most books, papers and publications on new theories, re-proving or disapproving long-established theories, discoveries and new research, findings, etc available, if not all, are published in English.

Not knowing English at an accepted level or standard, our graduates and students cannot use them even if they have access to those reports, theories, research, discoveries and findings for the very simple reason that they do not know English.

So, why deny them such privilege?

Science is objective, fixed and definite and it dwells on formulas, remembering abbreviations or symbols. Science is also about memorising facts, principles and accepted theories.

General English, on the other hand, is something that can be considered “loose”, unstructured (unless, of course, if one talks about grammar, parts of speech or conventions) and it is about the ability to express one’s thought, construct sentences based on ideas or subjects given and allowing for the flow of thoughts, how to use reasoning, thinking, logic, rationale and/or common sense for many things that are mostly subjective and intangible.

Therefore, Science English and general English are two different things altogether and they are not interchangeable.

In general English, not all ideas will arrive at, reach or have conclusions but some still may be accepted.

Sometimes, parties involved need to “agree to disagree” and to compromise so that things do not stagnate.

Science is mostly, if not all the time, objective and whatever theory that is introduced, must be proven before it can be approved and accepted otherwise, it will just be discarded.

Hence, Science or Mathematics can be taught in any language and as the professor said correctly, “Much of the Science in the world is produced in non-English languages, such as German and French. Most of the discoveries in quantum physics are done in German.”

If our graduates only work in the country and do not have to deal or communicate with people overseas at all, that’s fine but then again, as a country, we will always be left far behind countries that have graduates and people who know and use English and have access to new scientific discoveries and technology.

We will then forever require the services of expensive overseas consultants, such as scientists, engineers, technologists, etc, to help our country as and when we need or have to embrace new scientific and engineering discoveries and the latest state-of-the-art technology (as in information technology) and this can be very expensive for us.

It can be argued that Science books in English can be translated into BM but, the question is, how many books can be translated in a year compared with the number of new science published during the same period?

Transfer of technology and knowledge cannot be applied for the same reason and as a country, because of that, we can never achieve First-World status.

Even after building or constructing new infrastructure, such as roads and highways, bridges, dams, installations of hi-tech equipment and facilities, including those for the purposes of defence, will have to be undertaken by expatriates.

Our own people will be delegated to subsidiary work and the less important non-strategic duties and responsibilities and we will always be dependent on foreigners.

Being a former soldier who saw real action and fought the country’s enemy with live bullets and ammunition and saw human blood being shed, the military made it a point that we have soldiers (and officers) who can speak the enemy’s language or languages, know and understand all the codes and all the sign languages used by them in order to gain an advantage over them.

We had to be at least one step ahead of the enemy at all times. That’s how crucial and important knowing more than just our own language is.

I believe, the professor attended overseas universities which use English language as the lingua franca and he did chemical engineering and other discipline of study related to Science up to doctorate level in English. He would be most pleased, thankful and relieved that his knowledge of English is high. 

If everything is like Science where everything has to be definite, there’s no need to know general English and it’s sufficient to know just Science English, going by the professor’s argument, governing the country or being a vice-chancellor, for that matter, would be an easy job, but that is definitely not the case and it will never be.

The professor himself said: “According to the Princeton historian of science, Prof Michael Godin in his new book, Scientific Babel, English became the dominant language of scientific communication only recently, in the last 60 years, at the expense of the previous triumvirate of scientific communication languages English, French and German.”

His other arguments about the international scientific community also point towards the same direction, that is, the preferred use of English in Science.

Therefore, isn’t it perfectly logical and right for our students to embrace English just like the international scientific community or, do we have to wait another 200 years before we follow that trend and be left behind? 

Malaysians, regardless what your political inclinations are, who are against the implementation of the DLP, please do not let our country lose out in the bargain and with the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, please realise that our country has ambitious plans and that we want to be an important global player not just in trade only but in many other areas as well and education is definitely one of them.

This way, every one of us will gain. Without a good grasp of English besides knowing the national language, we may not get the quality (of education) that we are all looking for.

Please do not be selfish and do not bring in any more obstacles to the many that we already have to face and let the country and the people of Malaysia be what we want our future to be. – February 23, 2016.

* Hussaini Abdul Karim reads The Malaysian Insider.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.