No plans to reintroduce English for science and maths, says Education Ministry

KUALA LUMPUR: The Education Ministry has no plans to reintroduce the teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI).

The Ministry said this in a written reply to William Leong (PH-Selayang), who asked if there were plans to introduce PPSMI and what would be done to overcome the previous weaknesses in the policy.

"The Education Ministry has no intention to reintroduce the PPSMI policy," it said in a brief written reply.

The policy was first introduced in 2003 when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the fourth Prime Minister.

However, it was abolished in 2011.

When Dr Mahathir was appointed as the seventh premier, he said a Cabinet committee had been formed to study the reintroduction of PPSMI.

He said the decision on whether PPSMI would be reintroduced would follow the majority opinion of the Cabinet.

Meanwhile, in a separate written reply, the Education Ministry said Cabinet had decided that Jawi lessons would be continued in vernacular and government-aided missionary schools if it was approved by the respective parent-teacher association.

The ministry also said that in Aug 14 last year, the then cabinet decided that the number of pages for the Jawi script syllabus for Standard 4 pupils would be reduced from six pages to three pages.

"The ministry will look into matters related to Jawi writing in a holistic manner.

"However, for the time being, the decision made by the previous cabinet remains," said the ministry to Steven Sim (PH-Bukit Mertajam).