THE IMPACT OF MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION POLICY ON MALAYSIAN DEVELOPMENT

The selection of medium of instruction is heavily influenced by political, social and economical factors. For multi-ethnic and multi-lingual countries, the selection of two national languages is based on political factors, where the leaders try to avoid dissension and division of ethnic groups and in the extreme, civil war. In many cases, the colonial language is often chosen because of its characteristics which include it being a “neutral, lingua franca and dominant working language,” (Tollefson, 2004:4). The strong evidence had shown that the adoption of English as an official language by nation-states has little influence on subsequent economic development. the majority of the “Asian Tiger Economies” have opted instead for a local language. Conscious efforts were made by the governments to gradually introduce the use of Malay language as the medium of instruction at all levels of education over period of 26 years. The performance of Malay-medium of Instruction universities at post-graduate level was amazing. They had proved the ability to get Masters and Ph.D or degree in medic specialist from overseas and local universities. Majority of them got their first science degree from local. Their performance was indirectly denied the claim from pro-English group that Malay-medium graduate not competitive or not world class standard. The Malay medium of instruction policy also successfully achieved the objective of national integration among their students. Research findings showed that the Malay medium of instruction had an impact in lowering social distance for Form One students, lowering ethnocentrism for non-Malays and lowering stereotyping among Malays. The school in the national medium did act as an agency of national integration to a small extent. Even though the medium did not have the desired impact for primordial attachments as the nation builders would have liked, at the same time it had not created an adverse impact as prophesised by some. The Malay-medium of instruction policy had successful in many things during 20 years (1970-1990) of implementation especially in science, engineering and technology. By comparing with European civilization who needed at least three centuries to produce their scholars but Malaysia only need 40 years to produce their world scholars in sciences and technology through Malay-medium of instruction. This achievement never been happened in other languages in the world.