Malaysia Boleh!!

Malaysia No.1 in English in Asia

Malaysia boleh! Although there’s much (deserved) grumbling about our national English standards, it happens that we’re actually in the first spot for English proficiency in the Asia region for countries where English is not the mother tongue.
From 2007 to 2009, Education First conducted online English tests on 2.3 million working adults all from over the world. English proficiency was tested in four categories – grammar, vocabulary, reading and listening.
Among Asian countries, Korea’s 54.19 points followed by Malaysia  with 55.54 points and Hong Kong  with 54.44 points. Koreans’ English proficiency can be considered relatively high considering that Korea’s official language is not English. Malaysia and Hong Kong, however, use English as one of their official languages.
The influence on our English Language proficiency by British Colony is still under effect even though Malaya had gained independence in 1957 and Malaysia had it in 1963. It is clearly seen and proved from our public exam results that English Proficiency for East Malaysians are far much better than West Malaysians as East Malaysia's national education policy (changed the medium of instruction in schools to Bahasa Malaysia- change SC to MCE and HSC to STPM) took effect 10 years later compared to its counterpart. It is further seen when PPSMI took effect in 2003. The effort of training the non-english speaking and non-english educated teachers in teaching Science and Maths in English was far more tedious in West Malaysia as it did not have enough man power to be the trainers and there were a much greater number of young teachers to be trained. Generally speaking, the last batch of English educated teachers in West Malaysia in 2003 were all above 45 years old whereas in East Malaysia, they are only 35. Consequently, schools  in certain states in West Malaysia were still using Bahasa Malaysia to teach Science and Maths most of the time as the teachers are incompetent to deliver and the students are not proficient enough to receive the knowledge too.
PPSMI was put into practice since 2003, a duration of 9 years. It is just a warming up session for miserable Malaysian students before the policy is abolished. The Government has spent an astronomical amount on the teachers' education during this decade, to prepare them to be competent but starting from next year, teachers and students need to adapt and adopt again to teach Science and Maths in Malay. I doubt whether the Government needs to pour another tremendous amount of money to train the teachers again to be able to teach in Malay.
Teachers' proficiency in language is manipulated and it is confusing when the medium of instruction is changed from one to the other for so many times. Soemtimes, teachers do not know what language to use when they enter the class. Just imagine, when you teach Form 4 by using English and  during the next moment go into Form 5 class and teach them in Malay. It happened from 2003 to 2007. Now starting from 2011, Form 4 will be in Malay and Form 5 will be in English. Teachers need to be "SANGAT BOLEH" to twist and switch within a few hours to deliver the correct knowledge with the exact language. Haha.......... Malaysia BOLEH!!! Malaysian Science and Maths Teachers "SERBA BOLEH"!!!!
Despite all the troubles Malaysian teachers and students went through because of the political upheavals and dilemma, in terms of knowledge acquisition, they also benefit in a way or other. Even though our national language is Malay language, certain statutory bodies are still using English as their official language in correspondence. 9 years of PPSMI benefits some large number of human capitals though it is said to be unsuccessful on the whole. It is probably the main reasons why Malaysia is still top in English proficiency in Asia. Malaysia BOLEH!!!