Parents urge Cabinet to intervene in DLP issue

KUALA LUMPUR: With the start of the 2024 academic term in March, parents are urging the Cabinet to table a memorandum supporting the continuation and expansion of the Dual Language Programme (DLP).

Parent Action Group for Education (Page) chairman Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim, on Monday (Jan 15), urged Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek to address the intricacies and gather feedback on the matter from her Cabinet colleagues and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

“We have been informed that there will be a Cabinet retreat on Jan 17 and 18, and one of the discussion topics will be education.

“We have written a memorandum seeking for full DLP schools to remain, and the expansion of DLP schools, along with the addition of classes and pupils where the specified criteria in the ‘Specialised Circular Letter (SPI) Number 3 of 2020: Improvement of the Education Ministry’s DLP Implementation Guidelines for 2021’ are met. We support the SPI.

“We hand-delivered the memorandum to 31 Cabinet ministers last Thursday and Friday. We have the stamps of all the 31 ministries,” she said.

She added that the memorandum was also emailed to the senior private secretary, the special duties officer and the private secretary last Friday (Jan 12).

Noor Azimah said that on Nov 23 last year, Anwar said students must improve their English proficiency skills while also mastering the Malay language and that learning both languages should not be a zero-sum game.

“The DLP is exactly that and more. The three objectives of the DLP as stated in the guidelines are to enhance English proficiency, to acquire scientific knowledge in its lingua franca, and to improve employability while ensuring the Malay language or mother tongue is given significance beyond the subjects of Science and Mathematics.

“We strongly urge the Cabinet to table our memorandum at the retreat. We are merely seeking the guidelines for the DLP to be strictly adhered to. Do not add further restrictions to undermine the success of the DLP,” she said.

She also said parents and the schools were not provided an official channel to appeal the directive.

"In the case of SK Convent 1 Bukit Nanas, SK Bukit Damansara and three Tamil schools, all the Parent Teacher Association chairpersons wrote to the (Education) Ministry, the (Education) Minister, the State Education Department and also the State Education Department head.

"They wrote to everybody they could think of under the sky, but nobody has received or acknowledged the letters," she said.

Noor Azimah also claimed that Fadhlina's statement about the ministry reviewing DLP appeals 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% of the primary schools in peninsula and Sabah are part of the programme,” she said.

Meanwhile, on the private sector front, Royal Selangor International Sdn Bhd chairman Tan Sri Yong Poh Kon said 91% of employers interviewed in a survey see English as the language of business.

“In 2017, 60% of our Form Five school leavers had an English proficiency level at primary school level and below. This is not the level of English for a country like Malaysia to progress into the digital age.

“No one disputes that Bahasa Malaysia is our national language, and its position is enshrined in the Constitution.

“Nevertheless, we also cannot ignore that in this new digital age, the explosion of scientific and technological knowledge is primarily in the English language,” said Yong, who is also the former National Education Advisory Council deputy chairman.