Sunday, November 20, 2011

On Making English the Compulsory-Pass Subject

There has been talks to make English a "compulsory pass" in SPM. I don't know the exact definition of a "compulsory pass", but I understand it to mean -- if you don't pass English, you won't get the sijil.

Ridiculous.

Absurd.

Elitist.

Colonialistic!

What's the purpose of denying a student the SPM cert JUST BECAUSE he failed English? I mean, he might have passed other subjects! Can't give him the cert and just say he didn't pass English ah!

7 comments:

William said...

Works the same way with Bahasa Malaysia.

Crystal Colloid Cum said...

Ya, but bahasa melayu is like national language...

Actually it's ridiculous also la. just because you fail one subject, they makan your entire sijil.

zzz.

William said...

Still it doesn't make sense. One uses Bahasa Malaysia to answer those other papers. Imagine scoring As for all other papers and having a bad score in Bahasa Malaysia invalidate them all.

Crystal Colloid Cum said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Crystal Colloid Cum said...

William: You're right. It doesn't make sense.

It's unlikely to change though, considering how intertwined our education system is with some nationalistic discourse.

savante said...

It's one way to make everyone learn English well. By making it a compulsory pass, more of us would make it a priority.

Crystal Colloid Cum said...

Paul:
I'm for improving English proficiency. But won't you think denying the student the SPM cert is a bit extreme? For one it would cause unnecessary (administrative) problems to the student later in life for not having a SPM cert. If English is that important, the government could just hire government staff with a credit in English (not sure whether that's the actual policy).

What's more, if English is already that important, why put the student who fail the subject at greater disadvantage by not issuing the cert? I'm sure "they" could have come up with more positive ways raising the English pass rates.