PAGE welcomes government's proposal on English language subject

Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE) welcomes the government's proposal to make English as a compulsory subject to pass in the Malaysian Certificate of Education (SPM).

Its president, Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim however, suggested that the Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI) should be continued to ease the process of implementation.

"We also feel it would ease and speed up the process towards 2016 and we wish to emphasize with our proposal to let the PPSMI and Upholding Bahasa Malaysia and Strengthening English (MBMMBI) work in line in achieving the objective," said Azimah when contacted by Astro Awani .

According to her, the proposal to make English as a compulsory subject to pass indicates that the government and the ministry are concerned for the students weakness in the subject who will soon be entering universities and later on, in working world.

She is also confident that the implementation will be a success since 61,000 English language teachers had started receiving training from the government in order to master the language.

At the same time Noor Azimah also agree with the decision made by the Ministry of Education to maintain a limit of 10 subjects for SPM candidates.

She said the decision is appropriate because there will be no benefits if a student takes more than 10 subjects.

“We think that if a student takes more than 10 subjects, it shows that the student is not focusing in what he or she likes,” said Noor Azimah.

On March 8, Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced the English language would most probably be made as a compulsory subject for students to pass in SPM starting 2016.