Comment on "No dilution of Mother Tongue"

I support the decision on not reducing the weightage of mother tongue. I think having bilingual skills is important in the society as of right now. As the society does not focus mainly on English now, it is advisable to have knowledge and skills of another language, especially the individuals own mother tongue language. Given that some families are English speaking, the children brought up in the family tend to neglect their own mother tongue language.

As quoted by PM Lee Hsien Loong , “the underlying problem is that pupils today have such diverse backgrounds and aptitudes in Chinese, Malay and Tamil, and reducing the weighting for these subjects at the PSLE is not the best way of resolving the problem” Thus when the english speaking parents requested for a lower weightage, it is in fact is not beneficial to the students themselves as they score well in other subjects but they’re mother tongue will deprove further.

As a matter of fact, every mother tongue language is as equally important to different individuals. Some may be fluent in English, some in Chinese, some in Malay and some in Tamil, . Reducing the weightage of the language may be a sensitive issue to some people who is particular about their mother tongue languages.

One important point to take note is that the students who have always fared well in their mother tongue languages have worked hard to achieve such good scores, reducing the weightage for subject does not do justice to the hard work they have put in.

I feel that it just takes a little more effort and time to nurture young children into students who are good in their mother tongue. It should never be an issue that the subject’s weightage be reduced because of the disadvantages of the other students weak in it.


Commented by: Edena Tay
Admin number: 101867P


With reference to : http://www.iteachilearn.com/cummins/mother.htm

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20100511- 215458.html