The debate on the use of English for Mathematics and Science seems to have peaked with the demonstration on the 7th of March 2009.
As a teacher trainer, all I can do is shake my head sadly and say to myself, “they've missed the point. It's not about the children's lack of
understanding, it's the ineffective training of the teachers!”

But I am not the only one who is saying this. Scores of people (if you go by the letters to the editors in the main stream media and the
thousands of comments on blogs and website s as well as the opinions I hear from the teaching/ training fraternity ) are aware of this fact.
We certainly would not have been spending so much time arguing about the medium of instruction for these two critical subjects in the
school curriculum, if from the onset, the training had been given the right perspective.

One may say, hindsight wisdom is always easy. But in this case the alarm bells were ringing right from the start. Children were coming home
and telling their parents that their teachers were not familiar with the vocabulary of the subject. The explanations were truncated and
the net result was disastrous. Children were left wondering what had they been taught. Knowledge was not transferred; instead, bits and
pieces of information was given. And what is even more maddening is the attitude of the principals. As head s of their institutions , they did
very little to arrest this situation. They could have sought the help of the Parents Teachers Association or other bodies to upgrade the level
of English among Science and Math teachers

As I ( write) this, I am mindful of the fact that there have been isolated cases where the principals have taken on the responsibility of improving
the standard of teaching of Science and Math using the English Language. But they are far and few between. Those tiny ripples have hardly
made a dent in this highly emotionally charged discussion.

What is going to happen? Will we revert to the teaching of Mathematics and Science in Bahasa Malaysia?
Please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, I beseech you.

Andal Krishnan
(in the business of learning and knowledge transfer)

Please do send me your views about the issue discussed above to info@cecentre.com