Ignore English and you'll fall behind

COMMENT On April 10, the Sunday Star published a front-page story with the unassuming headline ‘English works'. It narrated the finding of a survey made recently by the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF).

The survey stated that verbal and communications skills, working experience, interpersonal skills, passion and commitment, are deemed as highly desirable qualities private sector employers look for when hiring new employees.

These were given a higher than 50-percent rating. The important but silent underlying point is that these qualities can be better developed by workers conversant in the English language.

What do all these tell us? It's a matter of perception, of course, and I have two of them.

Firstly, it tells me that people having a good command of English fare better in their verbal and communication skills, in interpersonal relationships, and in solving tricky problems.

High marks at school and paper qualifications secured from colleges and universities (but in the Malay language) are no match for good interpersonal and communication skills secured in English.

Secondly, the MEF is making the statement that job candidates conversant in English are mentally better developed and more productive in national wealth creation.

Employers see these candidates as potentially more skillful and economically more productive, while showing higher commitment and dedication in the workplace. They go about their work with a great sense of duty, responsibility and professionalism.

The reverse would be true for those not having a good command of this language: their literacy and knowledge level would tend to be limited, as do their mental development.

They are tentative in outlook and appear lost in the modern technical, scientific and technological world. Chances for them to succeed in a job interview would be lower. They won't be star performers in the workplace.

From what I observe, the Malaysian public has in fact been highlighting the same sentiment (that English is a more dynamic language and therefore of greater usefulness to us all) in their daily conversations, in letters written to the editors of national-level newspapers like the Star, in other public dialogues, and definitely so in the Internet and other electronic media.

One bagful of irrelevance?

This latest MEF finding is but one more of such a ‘dialogue' and revelation; an important one, as private sector employers are the top-level leaders and movers of the economy.

Now that the MEF has entered the fray, what are we doing about it? Are we going to just ignore it? Are we treating it like one bagful of irrelevance?

No, we citizens have not been ignoring it. We've been constantly debating over it all the time. It's the government side that seems to be doing so.

It is the government or the extreme-right public officials and leaders - proponents of Ketuanan Melayu - that seem to duck the issue all the time.

Yes, ducking serious issues seem to be the government's trait. For this survey, I can imagine it claiming that the MEF as harbouring bad intentions (like trying to ‘confuse' people), and for being malicious by making and publishing ‘seditious' survey results.

What I'd like to see of course is that the authorities should take a long hard look at this language issue, recognise its value and truth and try to reverse the shrinking intellectual level, progress and development of the workforce.

My fear is that the government will do no such thing. Instead it will let the matter rest. It will ignore it, while hoping that soon enough, the issue will be forgotten.

I mention this highly probable scenario in view of the factor that the proponents of Ketuanan Melayu are in a deep state of denial.

To begin with they say that this country is ‘Tanah Melayu' or ‘Malay Land'. It is owned by Malays so the language used should be Malay.

Malays also think that the Malay language is the original national language, one that could and would unite the multi-ethnic groups that make up Malaysia.

They also claim that Malay is a language of learning, and its linguistic group, Malayo-Polynesian, is one of the top 10 groups of languages in the world.

It's almost taken as a form of religion: non-Malay speaking citizens are often chastised for their inability or unwillingness to speak Malay, equating this with negative principles such as lacking in loyalty, patriotism and nationalism.

Suffice it is for me to say that Malays refuse to see the obvious strength of English over Malay as hinted by the MEF survey and by the constant debates taking place in the public domain.

In other words, the Malays are happy even if their potential workforce underperforms despite having the right degree or good academic results. Malays are happy even if their workers have no desire to learn, do not work well under pressure, and having poor initiative.

Forget about their very poor verbal and communication skill, interpersonal experience, passion and commitment.

How such people can compete with other Malaysians not to mention the international community in a shrinking global environment is quite beyond me.

Twin wisdoms

I am a believer in the twin wisdoms that (i) thinking influences behavior and (ii) that a person judges himself according to what he thinks he can do, but others judge him according to what he has already done.

Based on this, I can see that the country has been doing very badly when compared with other countries with similar potential.

Take Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan as examples. Some 30 years or so ago these countries were in the same boat as us in terms of per capita income.

Today they are way ahead, ironically enough at the point where we wish to be in the year 2020. Come this much anticipated year 2020 these countries would be that much further ahead!

I believe part of the explanation for our comparative stagnation has been due to our language policy i.e. to throw out English as the medium of instruction in schools in preference to Malay.

If the present situation is serious, the longer-term future is all the more bleak.

Either which way as a country we seem to be losing the plot. PM Najib Abdul Razak for example is busy making his ‘people first' slogan into ‘his people first' action. By juggling open inverted commas he clears his conscience.

DPM Muhyiddin Yasin is busy interlocking with his chosen historians in their furious effort to present only the ‘positive' (read that as ‘exaggerated Malay') aspects of history to school children.

To quote Confucius, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. So Ketuanan Melayu, take the first step and give the MEF survey a proper and realistic evaluation.
 

AB SULAIMAN is an observer of human traits and foibles, especially within the context of religion and culture. As a liberal, he marvels at the way orthodoxy fights to maintain its credibility in a devilishly fast-changing world. He hopes to provide some understanding on the issues at hand and wherever possible, suggest some solutions. He holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences (Leicester, UK) and a Diploma in Public Administration, Universiti Malaya.