Impractical to ignore English, says Adenan
KUCHING: The whole nation, particularly lingual-nationalists, must be practical in matters relating to adopting English as the country’s second national language to ensure a more efficient and competitive human capital development on par with global advancement.
In pointing this out, Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem said the people should not be narrow-minded on the usage of English considering that it has become the language of the world.
He also said English has become the global language of commerce, science, technology, literature as well as interaction between countries and to ignore English would be impractical.
Adenan reminded that past Education policies, putting emphasis on Bahasa Malaysia while ignoring the importance of English have been a failure when it comes to human capital development.
Besides that, he said the country was facing a dilemma because it constantly churned out thousands of unemployed graduates who couldn’t even put words into a sentence in English.
He attributed the high number of unemployable graduates to their non-proficiency in the English language and this has set the country aback by 10 years.
“It is high time we came to our realisation that English ought to be the second language in Malaysia. The first language is of course Bahasa Malaysia, being the national language that we are proud of. But why can’t we be bilingual at the same time?
“I know there are some lingual-nationalists amongst us. They disagreed with the official adaptation of the English language, saying it is the language of our colonial masters. This is true but English is no longer the language of the Anglo-Saxons. It is the language of the world and if you don’t want to be left behind, you must join the bandwagon.
“Otherwise, you will be left behind and look stupid,” he said when officiating at the launching of ‘Books for Asia programme in Sarawak’ at the State Legislative Assembly complex here yesterday.
Under the initiative dubbed ‘The Usage of English as Second Official Language in Sarawak’, the programme will see The Asia Foundation donating thousands of brand-new books and digital contents in English to be distributed to students, educators including libraries and educational institutions throughout the state in a bid to inculcate reading, empowering knowledge and increase English proficiency.
Present to witness the launch were Herizal Hazri, the country representative of The Asia Foundation - Malaysia, Universiti Malaya deputy vice-chancellor (Academic and International) Prof Dr Awang Bulgiba Awang Mahmud, State Secretary Tan Sri Datuk Amar Mohamad Morshidi Ghani and Yayasan Sarawak director Datu Mohamad Abu Bakar Marzuki.
Adenan, when stressing the need to learn English on top of Bahasa Malaysia, pointed out that many countries adopted a certain language as their national language without forgetting English.
He cited Singapore as being practical, where English is widely spoken by its citizens despite Mandarin and Malay being the native language.
“There was a time, I remember, when some federal minister said that we (the government) will not entertain any correspondence if it is not (written) in Bahasa Malaysia. That is not the right move.
“That is why we have downturned the policy in Sarawak. I don’t care what Putrajaya says, English ought to be the second language in the state. Now you are welcome to write in English or Bahasa Malaysia to correspond with the state government,” he continued.
The launching also saw the signing of a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Yayasan Sarawak, The Asia Foundation and the International Institute of Public Policy and Management (Inpuma) - the custodian for Books of Asia which collaborated with the University of Malaya.
The programme will see about 19,000 first shipment of books to arrive in the state on March 23. Distribution will be administrated by the Sarawak Foundation.