THE Government must come up with plans help Malaysians overcome the English language barrier so that they do not miss out on greater economic opportunities, said Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman.
The Muar MP stressed that English is the international language of commerce and trade and Malaysians must be proficient in the language to access opportunities around the world.
“We cannot turn a blind eye to the facts on the ground. Proficiency in English is regarded as a crucial quality that companies in Malaysia are seeking when looking through job applications and is very often the reason cited for the perceived unemployability of Malaysian graduates in the private sector,” he said in a Facebook post today.
According to Syed Saddiq who is also the MUDA president, despite the country being ranked 28th out of 112 countries in the 2021 English Proficiency Index, Malaysians should not be proud that Malaysia is ranked only behind Singapore and the Philippines within Asia.
“We should remember that the competition for talent, jobs and investment in the coming decades will be increasingly global,” he pointed out.
“With a population of only 33 million people, it is crucial that Malaysians are equipped with every possible tool to export innovative ideas, solutions and goods quickly and easily to the rest of the world.”
Syed Saddiq said an education policy that aims to ensure that all Malaysian students achieve proficiency in at least three languages, including Malay and English, is crucial to breaking down walls and building bridges between communities in the country.
Recently, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that he will propose to ASEAN leaders to recognise Bahasa Malaysia as ASEAN’s second language.
The Prime Minister also added that Bahasa Malaysia will be used at official government functions abroad when English is not the host country’s national language and used Bahasa Malaysia in his recent visit to Cambodia.
But while he welcomed the efforts to strengthen proficiency in Bahasa Malaysia seeing as to how the language is “part of the country’s rich, diverse heritage that should be celebrated” Syed Saddiq went on to express his concerns.
“I worry that these gestures are merely token steps for the purposes of rallying up support in an election year, without an actual vision or philosophy for language in a complex country like Malaysia,” he commented. – March 29, 2022
