KUALA LUMPUR: A three-hour conference participated by 45 academicians and representatives from non-governmental organisations yesterday called on the government to revert to using Bahasa Malaysia in teaching mathematics and science in school.

Prof Emeritus Tan Sri Ismail Hussein who chaired the Learning of Science and Mathematics in English Roundtable Conference here, said 30 per cent of primary and secondary school students had failed to adapt to the method of learning the two subjects in English.

The policy that began in 2003 had clearly failed to make English an educational language but had sacrificed 146,000 school students who were unable to master the two subjects, he told reporters after the conference.

He said the government should be held responsible for this state of affairs and the education minister should be removed for failing to honour the responsibility entrusted upon him if the government did not revert to using the national language.

“We do not want our children to be used as guinea pigs and when the experiment fails, they bear the brunt of it.

“We also do not want to be cursed by the next generation for failing to change the method of teaching the two core subjects in English while we have a language which has successfully taken the Malaysian race into space,” he said.

Ismail said teaching a language should not be mixed with teaching other subjects and English should be taught as a second language in all schools and educational institutions.

“We also want the Education Ministry to allocate sufficient funds to ensure English teachers really master the language,” he said.

He said the conference’s resolutions would be submitted to the Cabinet next week for further action.

— Bernama