IT started with a request in the Dewan Negara for the government to take steps to improve the English proficiency of students in schools by teaching certain subjects in English.

This led to a decision to use English to teach Science and Mathematics. Unfortunately, the story did not end there as it was reported in the newspapers that examination results revealed a gap between rural, semi-urban and urban schools.

Now the controversy is focused on whether English should continue to be used for the teaching of Science and Mathematics.

One group wishes the English language to continue to be used while another group would prefer the subjects to be taught in Bahasa Malaysia as was done previously.

Cogent reasoning was put forward on the need to be proficient in English.
Without proficiency in that language, young graduates will find it difficult to get suitable jobs befitting their academic qualifications.

This is the information age. We are sunk if we do not have the ability to access sources of information in English. English is very important for our survival in a globalised world.

In stressing the importance of the English language, someone wrote that English was the language of science and technology.

Another emphasised that English was the lingua franca of commerce, trade and international relations.

Yet another pointed out that the English language was the undisputed lingua franca "especially in this information technology age where knowledge spreads fast and authoritative reference books are in English".

It is quite relevant in this discussion to view the importance of the English language in the world as arguments have been based on its global supremacy.

On the question of English as the language of science and technology, someone asked whether English was the language of science in Europe, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and in may other countries which have made great strides in science and technology.

There are several factors for the growing importance of the English language in the world today.

Britain and France insisted on the use of their languages in their colonies. Two centuries of British and American colonial, commercial, industrial, scientific and fiscal power left a substantial legacy in higher education, government, trade and technology throughout the world.

Since World War 2, the dominance of the English-speaking peoples in science and technology and international commerce has led to the recognition of English as an important language.

Is English the world's language? There is no evidence to support the proposition that an increasing proportion of the world's population is speaking English. On the contrary, available statistics show just the opposite.

The data covering the period from 1958 to 1992 suggest that the overall pattern of languages used in the world did not change dramatically -- that significant declines occurred in the proportion of people speaking English, French, German, Russian and Japanese and that increases occurred in the proportion of people speaking Hindi, Malay-Indonesian, Arabic, Bengali, Spanish, Portuguese and other languages.

English speakers in the world dropped from 9.8 per cent in 1958 to 7.6 per cent in 1992. A language foreign to 92 per cent of the people in the world cannot be the world's language.

People need to communicate with each other and have to find means to do so.

Throughout history, lingua francas have emerged: Latin in the classical and medieval era, French for several centuries in the west, Swahili in many parts of Africa and now English throughout much of the world since the latter half of the 20th century.

Diplomats, businessmen, scientists, tourists and the services catering for them, airline pilots and air traffic controllers need some means of efficient communication with each other, and do it largely in English.

In this sense, English is the world's way of communicating inter-culturally. The use of the English language in this way presupposes the existence of separate cultures.

A lingua franca is a way of coping with linguistic and cultural differences, not a way of eliminating them. Precisely because people want to preserve their own cultures, they use a lingua franca to communicate with people of other cultures.

In Malaysia and other countries which were once under colonial rule, the use of English tends to decline and indigenous languages, such as Malay, become more prevalent.

Lingua francas like English cannot supplant the use of indigenous languages.

Proficiency in the use of the English language is a problem not only among students but also among teachers and heads of schools. People in rural and semi-urban areas hardly use English and, unlike those living in urban areas, have little contact with those who use English.

The question which needs to be answered is how to help people gain proficiency in English. Nothing much can be done so long as there is no change in society which requires a greater use of English.

What about the university graduates who can't find employment because their English is poor? The obvious answer is for them to take the initiative on their own to study English.

Now we go back to the first question: whether to continue using English as the medium of instruction for Science and Mathematics or revert to the practice of using the national language.

A visiting senior lecturer at Universiti Malaysia's Faculty of Education, Bill Templer, has pointed out that research in North America on English-language learners with immigrant backgrounds suggests that learning complex material in the pupil's first language helps to lay better conceptual foundations and ultimately to strengthen progress in the second language.

People need to feel proud of their own background, home language, values and realities ("Students' attitudes" -- NST, Aug 11).

I, therefore, strongly support Khairy Jamaluddin's suggestion that it is high time we ditched the policy of using English as the medium of instruction for the teaching of Science and Mathematics.