KUALA LUMPUR: Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia (Page), with the backing of over 35 education groups, submitted a memorandum to all 31 ministries last week, calling for the maintenance of the current dual language programme (DLP) guidelines.
Its chairperson, Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim, revealed that the Education Ministry (Moe) has not responded to any of the meetup requests by education advocate groups, including the request from the former deputy chairperson for the National Education Advisory Council.
"If the Education Minister and the Ministry had been more accommodating, we would not have had to do this," she said.
Noor Azimah said the memorandum has five major requests, which include: (i) maintain full DLP schools; (ii) respect parents' choice for DLP; (iii) expand the number of DLP schools, classes and pupils; (iv) avoid opening non-compulsory non DLP classes in 2024 by force and; (v) avoid confusing implementation of DLP at all levels.
"A non-DLP class must be established, which are unwritten terms forced on schools. This contradicts the DLP guidelines, which state that the success of the programme lies in the commitment and efficacy of all parties.
"Also, ignoring parental choice is clearly contradicting the spirit of formulating the DLP by the advisory council in 2015," she added.
Noor Azimah said poor Bahasa Melayu or proficiency in 'Bahasa Ibunda' (mother tongue) should not be used as an excuse to deprive students from attending DLP classes.
"Instead, immerse them in BM and Bahasa Ibunda programmes without taking away their choice of DLP," she said.
Noor Azimah said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, in his speech on Nov 23 last year, has agreed that the student's proficiency in English should be improved while mastering Bahasa Melayu (BM) and that learning both languages should not be a zero-sum game.
"The DLP is exactly that and more. It is a crown jewel. As stated in the guidelines, the objectives of DLP are to enhance the student's English proficiency to acquire scientific knowledge in its lingua franca and improve employability while ensuring BM or the mother tongue is given significance beyond science and mathematics," she said.
Noor Azimah emphasised that the education advocate groups are merely seeking for the existing guidelines on the DLP to be strictly adhered to.
"The DLP can exist alongside the English language improvement programmes that the Education Minister has in mind," she said.
She also alleged that no official channels were provided for parents or the schools to appeal the directive.
"In the case of SK Convent 1 Bukit Nanas, SK Bukit Damansara and three Tamil schools, all the PTA chairpersons wrote to the (Education) Ministry, the (Education) Minister, the State Education Department and also the Head of the State Education Department.
"They wrote to everybody they could think of under the sky, but nobody has received nor acknowledged the letters. There has not been any response," she said.
Noor Azimah claimed that what the Minister, Fadhlina Sidek has said, where the ministry would be reviewing the DLP appeal on a case-by-case basis, is superficial.
"It is just rhetoric. Excluding schools from Sarawak, of which all 1265 are in full DLP, only 5.3 per cent of the primary schools in peninsula and Sabah are part of the programme; this is way far away from the initial target of 2500 DLP schools when the programme was first introduced.
"To me, that is not an expansion. It is a contraction which appears to be a deliberate attempt to kill the DLP," she said.