English Proficiency is the KEY TO THE 21st CENTURY

The government has at last made the decision to scrap the teaching of maths and science in English. To boost the task of teaching English to our students, many more English teachers will be engaged, and English literature will be reintroduced. Core subjects will also be reduced from more than 10 at the moment to just six.

The aim of education should be to nurture thinking and creativity. This has been hardly addressed. The reason why English literature was taken out from the curriculum was that students no longer had sufficient command of the Engish language to make that subject teachable.

The big question however is whether we want to be leaders of industry and commerce of the 21st century, or merely followers. English language is key if we really are serious of going forward.

Korea started its economic rise at about the same time as us. Now they are the biggest ship builder, and a major force in the world in the fileds of telecommunications, electronics and automobiles. Perhaps we can get a glimpse of what makes Korea tick with a glance of one of their leading educational institutions.

The Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) was formed in 1971, and now aims to compete with MIT. It aims to be one of the worlds top 10 science and technology universities. In 2010 it will teach class exclusively in the English language. One of their goals is to produce graduates who can become global leaders in science and technology.

Why can't we have at least one local university, UMS for example, use English as the single medium of instruction?