U Turns in PPSMI

Hold on, it's the MCA Youth Chief that said it before! On 18 January 2011, Wee Ka Siong said clearly that the Education Ministry is not going to take a u-turn on abolishing PPSMI. This excerpt from The Malaysian Insider on that day (note it is in BM) said as follows: 

Keputusan mengkaji semula PPSMI dibuat menerusi perbincangan meja bulat, selepas perbincangan panjang lebar, keputusan dibuat berasaskan hasil penemuan,” kata beliau kepada The Malaysian Insider.

“Tidak, tidak. Malah sekolah-sekolah aliran Cina juga mahukan pengajaran subjek-subjek ini dalam Bahasa Malaysia. Ambil contoh yang mudah dan dapatkan komen daripada kumpulan-kumpulan profesional, dan anda akan tahu,” katanya.

Wee berkata pihaknya menyedari kempen Page yang mahu mengenakan tekanan ke atas kerajaan agar PPSMI diperkenalkan semula tetapi menambah, Kabinet tiada rancangan untuk berbuat demikian.

“Ini keputusan Kabinet. Kita perlu mematuhi apa yang telah diputuskan oleh Kabinet,” katanya lagi.

On the 5 April, the MCA big man himself Chua Soi Lek wanted English for Maths and Science "in selected schools". In actual fact, there is no such thing as select schools. It's kind of saying it is picky. If Chua Soi Lek says that statement above, it clearly means two things: that it seems there is another u-turn coming up on the PPSMI, which is not even 6 months after Wee Ka Siong and Muhyiddin said no; and there is actually a clash between Soi Lek and Ka Siong on this policy, even both are MCA and from the same state of origin.

This is what Soi Lek said from the excerpt on The Malaysian Insider:

“We should adopt a more forward looking perspective with regards to education instead of taking the retrogressive approach in opposing the use of English.

“The teaching of the two subjects in English should be allowed to continue, especially in select urban schools where there is already a demand for it,” he said.

I am not really bothered of who's better between those two Chinamen but I feel the sense of flip-flops with one now saying "I want back", reversing the decision of  "No, I don't really want." It is indeed confusing people already including parents who have school children. There has no unanimous agreement from the officials and the general public over whether to cancel PPSMI or not. PAGE is a group that wanted PPSMI for schools because of the language application in its workings when working on jobs involving technology. 

Dr. Mahathir misjudged himself in the early 70s on having BM as main medium of instruction only to regret and want PPSMI before his retirement in 2003. I bet there would be some arguments between some parties again with this issue being reignited again. I do no doubt can see Chua being reprimanded by Muhyiddin, in capacity as Education Minister by saying "issue is final - no more discussion". 

We shall see how it unfolds then.