1.0 Purpose of Dual language program.

In order to find out the readiness and confidence among the students, Dual Languages
Program(DLP) were introduced in year 2016 after the abolishment of English for Teaching
Mathematics and Science policy (PPSMI). The purpose of this programs is to identify the
level of readiness of the students in this programs that has mention earlier on. DLP is a
program that allows the teaching of science and mathematics in English for year one, year
two, year four and year five students. Besides that, students in secondary which is form one
and form two students are also involved in the program. For example, the students in SK
(Sekolah Kebangsaan) will learn mathematics and science in Malays and in English.
Evidence also shows that students are able to improve their performance in English subject
while this program is being carried out. “Their vocabulary, grammar and speech have gotten
better. I see it in their grades,” SMJK Kwang Hua principal Law Choon Lee was quoted
saying.

Since the DLP programs had launched since 2016, it has improved school students’ English
proficiency. Sunday Star reported that based on Education Ministry statistics, between 18 %
and 95 % of students in over 1200 primary and secondary schools which implemented this
program had improved their grades in English. The program has not improved grades in
English, but also science and mathematics for vernacular school students. One of the
reason is because being in the 21 st century educations system today rely very much on the
informations from internet. If the students were to find information from internet it would be
much easier for them since there are a lot of exercise and tutorials in English. “It’s much
easier to do research on the internet with English,” 13-year-old SMJK Kwang Hua student
was quoted saying. There is no need for them to translate Mandarin to English nor Malays to
English when using the search engines.

2.0 Preconditions of schools

In order to implement this DLP program, the selected schools are responsible to explain to
parents and guardians on the suitability of students in participating this program. According
to New Straits Times, Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching said that despite the
ministry’s study showing that not all students are suitable and ready for this DLP program
but there are still some parents wished to enroll in this programs. She did advice the parents
to be extra careful in deciding to whether let their children to enroll in this program as it might
pressured some of the students that are unable to cope well in this changes. “ I feel that the
schools should be responsible in explaning the benefit and advantages of DLP to parents.
Even though it is an option it does not mean it is suitable for all students. There are parents
who wish so much for their children to enroll in DLP but in the end, the students feel

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pressured. I think that schools need to explain to parents and guardians on whether their
children are suitable for DLP,” she said at the Dewan Rakyat.

this year, the formal Education Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid has announced
the approval of another 126 schools in the country to implement Dual Languages Programs
(DLP). Mahdzir said the approval was given as the 126 schools had fulfilled the criteria listed
by the ministry in carrying out this program. According to the formal Education Minister the
application of schools participating in the DLP program would be approve when the schools
meets the requirement which is having adequate resources, the readiness of the school and
parental support, as well as the school’s achievement in the Bahasa Melayu subject. In this
case, it would mean that the teachers are also expecting to have their English at the same
time in order to let the students benefited from the teachers as they guide the students
through. He added that the government had taken actions to help the teachers in
empowering their English such as the establishing of English Language Teaching Centre
(ELTC).

The rise in demand, says Universiti Malaya’s (UM) Language and Literacy Education
department head Assoc Prof Dr Juliana Othman, could be due to more schools being ready
for the DLP. When the programme was introduced last year, it was only made available in
high performance schools where the majority of students speak good English, and the
facilities are readily available, she says. “One year down the road, more schools have the
necessary resources, more books have been translated from Bahasa Malaysia (BM) to
English, and more teachers have been trained to teach math and science subjects in
English. “These factors, coupled with a growing number of parents who value English
medium instruction, have led to the growing number of DLP schools,” she offers.

3.0 The Achievement of DLP

Despite its controversial start, the Dual Language Programme (DLP) has proven to have
improved students’ command of English. There are 22,960 primary and secondStatistics
from the Education Ministry showed that between 18% and 95% of students in over 1,200
primary and secondary DLP schools have improved their grades in the subject. It has been
benefited most of the students in improving the mastery of their English. Deputy Education
Minister Teo Nie Ching said that study shows there are 36.28% of primary schools pupils
and 46.44 % of secondary school students showed an increase of their Exams from 2016 to
2017.

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 Prior to its January launch last year, groups championing for the national language,
Mandarin and Tamil have voiced their objection as they were worried that their language
would be sidelined. But for now, headmasters and teachers have observed a higher level of
English proficiency. “We have many foreign visitors coming and our students are sent out on
exchange programmes and international competitions overseas often. “They are more self-
assured communicating with outsiders,” said SMK (P) Sri Aman principal Misliah Kulop. She
is glad that through this program the sutdents are able to have more confident in themselves
while communicating with people when they are undergoing students exchange program.

According to A. Maliswairy, a teacher commented that without DLP, students will only
learn English in language class, but now that they are able to get equal exposure to Bahasa
Malaysia as well as English. Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia chairman Datin
Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim urged the Government not to do another policy “flip-flop” that
could affect the students’ future. The DLP, she said, had shown good results and was
reaching its goal to have more English-proficient students. “More time practising English
hasn’t resulted in the deterioration of the other languages taught at schools,” she said.

The Performance Management and Delivery Unit, together with the Education
Ministry’s Education Performance and Delivery Unit, ran an English Lab in 2015 that led to
the creation of the DLP. Both bodies are now involved in facilitating the implementation of
the programme in schools. Initially, 300 schools were identified for the pilot project when it
started last year. That number has since grown fourfold. As of June, 629 secondary and 585
primary schools – or about 10% of schools nationwide – offer DLP classes.

4.0 Issues surrounding

Dual Language Program was allow to implemented in Chinese and Tamil schools in the
peninsular last year after Teaching of Science and Mathematics was being abolished in the
year 2016. K. Arumugam, a trustee of CHILD, said the school was told to stop dual language
programme or risk legal action. It was on 31 March when the school was served with a letter
to suspend the DLP as its implementation was defectives and did not comply with the
guidelines issued by the education ministry.

Earlier of the year 2018, there was issue raise saying that DLP will be postponed for
those schools that are selected to start the DLP in year 2018. The problem came because
this information were only out two days before the school starts when the schools already
prepare with the briefing as well as materials for the students and the students parents. The
issue that are concern involve if Form one lesson of science and mathematics were carry out

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in BM earlier, afterwards DLP have to continue on, should the lesson that was taught before
needs to repeat in English instead? Are students in Form one does not need to follow DLP
until they are in form 3 ? If they were to follow DLP after it continues in the future, what about
the the PT3 pragram? The instruction to postpone can by easily carry out but they still have
to consider the parents who will be worry since their children have to face the uncertainty of
education.

When Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak rolled out Budget 2016, he noted the
importance of the language in facing global competition and announced two initiatives – the
DLP, and the HIP which is aimed at strengthening English by increasing usage hours
outside the classroom. “If you want to improve conversational proficiency, focus on the HIP,
not DLP. DLP is good for those with intermediate or high proficiency, because they’re
already good in English. Those who are weak in the language will struggle under the DLP.”

“That’s why vernacular schools aren’t keen on the DLP. Their students are already good in
math and science subjects so they see no reason to learn it in English. If they adopt the
DLP, results in these subjects may be affected.”

Furthermore, the Pena chairman, Dr Ibrahim Ghaffar claimed that the implementation
of the DLP will bring about discrimination between the schools in the urban and rural areas
as well as the vernacular counterparts. He stated that ‘educational policies should be applied
universally, rather than on a selected group. It is discriminatory for the programme to only be
available to the schools involved in the pilot project. Not only that, this discrimination will also
lead to a widening gap between urban and rural schools

5.0 Research

The research design of this study is quantitative in nature. Data were collected
through a survey and open-ended questions. This helps the researcher to gather the needed
data and analyse them without taking a long time. Kothari (2011) asserts that Likert-scale is
a good instrument of choice because it is easy to construct. In addition, she further added
that each statement included in the Likert-scale is subjected to empirical test for
discriminating ability, easy to be used and requires less time to construct. The questions
posed in the demographic profile of the respondents are class, gender and the general
question on students’ readiness of the programme. The readiness construct consists of
eleven items while the confidence construct has twelve items. At the end of the
questionnaire, the respondents would need to answer open-ended questions, which are
‘What makes you ready/unready to learn Science and Mathematics in English’ and ‘What is
the problem you face in this programme’. These open-ended questions presented the views

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of the respondents pertaining to the issues related to the programme. In addition, these
questions were designed to capture the unheard voices of the respondents.

The respondents involved in this study consisted of 145 DLP students from
secondary schools in one of the states in Malaysia. The selection of the respondents varied
as some of them were from the urban areas while some came from the rural areas. The
respondents were made up of 80 Form One students and the remaining was Form Two.
Purposive sampling technique was used intentionally because it is believed that the students
have been through the main concept being studied (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011).
Regarding the data collection, the researcher distributed the instruments and explained the
purpose of the study and the items available in the questionnaire to the respondents. The
findings were then analysed using SPSS Version 19 and descriptive statistics involving
frequency, percentage and mean were employed. Correspondingly, less than half of the
respondents asserted that the facilities provided are enough to assist the learning process.
This implies that the activities and facilities need to be improved to make the teaching and
learning process better.

In a nutshell, more efforts are needed to carry out the DLP more efficiently. This
ought to be done hand in hand by all parties, from the top position of policy makers to the
ones at the micro level of the simple management, i.e. practitioners. Ania and Widya Hanum
(2017) that the policy implementation process takes time, requires research and reflection
that will result in new ideas, new ways of doing things and, inevitably, new problems. It
should be noted that even if the students are ready towards this programme, the success
also depends on other aspects of implementation.