My Personal Opinion(s) On This Matter Is...

It's nearly the end of Ramadhan and tomorrow, I'll be hitting the road heading back to my 'kampung' or village in Perak which is about 100+ kilometres up north. My father said to brace ourselves as traffic is bound to be heavy, especially with Eid il Fitri right around the corner.

I'm bored and I can't sleep. Lately, the state of our education system keeps playing on my mind.

Learning is supposed to be fun. That's the most efficient way to learn. Where you see it's application in daily life and you get the appreciation because you know how it works. Well, when the students despise going to school, something isn't right. I can tell you for a fact, I learn best when I know and understand it's application in daily life. That really helps me. Like history, it's facts regarding what has happened and I kind of like history so I'm sort of alright there. Modern math is fun to do because our teacher really walks us through it one by one, makes us do exercises in class, making sure we understand. That's another factor, by the way; teaching method. A teacher's teaching method really makes an impact on his/her students. Teachers should really bear that in mind. It will make not only learning more fun but also teaching more fun.

All in all, I say that our education system needs to be looked at and analysed very closely. Put in all the factors from the obvious question of how relevant the syllabus is right down to the students' AND teachers' psyche is being affected. How it affects teaching efficiency. Education is as much social science as it is pure academia.

One more thing the politicians need to get through their ultra-thick skulls; STOP CHANGING THE LANGUAGE FOR THE F****** SYLLABUS!! These people can't even make up their bloody minds. A language change is a massive overhaul. Yes, initially, maybe the students on the country may lag behind a bit but it was only what 5 years? If I'm not mistaken. 5 years is hardly enough time to see whether the move has borne fruit or hasn't brought about any positive change. Also, the government must look at why. Is it purely the lack of mastery of the scientific terms and so on? Or is their mastery of English in general. If so, why? Are the English Language teachers doing a good enough job? Or are there simply insufficient programs to help the majority of students cope with learning a new language?

Unfortunately, Bahasa is also losing its identity. We have words like erti, istilah, maksudnya and so on and so forth. But what word does the government and other related parties like to use? Definisi. Bluergh! Yuck! What the hell are you guys doing?! The government says "Kita mesti mengagungkan Bahasa Malaysia!" which generally means we must uphold Bahasa Malaysia (the national language). But instead of bringing back older words which are in effect, actual Bahasa, we 'malayanize' -- I know its not an actual word -- english words. That really bothers me. Sure, many people can relate better to the borrowed words but I thought upholding our national language means reminding and re-educating people that we DO have our own words for it. Our language is indeed complete and not full of loopholes in the vocabulary. It is a sad fate of our national language.

I know it's been a long post and if you've made it this far my fellow readers, I thank you and wish you a hearty congratulations. Some of what I have said may be a bit uneasy for some readers as I am slightly commenting on the government's actions but I sincerely hope the government will take the proper steps in upholding our national language.

To my friends who are reading this, I know this post may be a bit contradictory as you guys know me as being pro-English but I am sincerely bothered by the fact that Bahasa nowadays is borrowing so many words from English and forgetting its own words.

Thank you for reading.

Aqil

P/S

Pardon the harsh language in paragraph 5.