CHOICE OF SECOND LANGUAGE

Dr Tan Cheng Bock asked the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education whether parents have any right in the choice of their children's second language.

The Minister of State of Education (Dr Tay Eng Soon) (for the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education): Sir, pupils of Malay, Indian and mixed parentage are at present given a choice of Malay, Tamil or Chinese as their second language on enrolment. However, since the beginning of this year, all ethnic Chinese pupils are required to enrol for Chinese as their second language in Primary 1. An opportunity to switch to another second language is given at Primary 4 or at Secondary 1 only after the pupil has been given a fair chance to try CL2 and has shown that he cannot cope with the language.

Apart from the fact that we want to encourage our pupils to learn something of their cultural origins through the second language, we know from our records that the passing rate for Chinese pupils is much better in CL2 than in other second languages. It is widely believed that ML2 (Malay as a second language) is an easy subject for non-Malays, but this is not the case. For example, in the 1979 'O' level examination, only 53% of the small number of Chinese pupils (705 to be precise) who took ML2 passed with Grade 6 or better, compared with 95% passes for Malay pupils. In 1980, the percentage passes in ML2 were 61% for Chinese pupils as against 99% passes for Malay pupils. These figures consistently indicate that ML2 is by no means an easy subject for Chinese pupils. In contrast, the percentage passes for Chinese pupils in the 'O' level CL2 examination in 1979 and 1980 were 80% and 84% respectively. One reason why Chinese pupils do not do as well in ML2 as Malay pupils is that they do not speak Malay as the home language. Even for those who do, the level of the home language is likely to be much more elementary than the standard of ML2 taught up to 'O' level.