SCIENCE, MATHS CAN BE TAUGHT IN ANY LANGUAGE, SAYS EXPERT

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 13 (Bernama) -- Mathematics and Science can be taught in
any language and not necessarily only in English, Royal Professor Ungku Aziz
Ungku Abdul Hamid said Thursday.

He said that both subjects could be learnt in any language as the main
purpose was to study the subject matter and not not the language.

"You can do it (learn science and mathematics) in Malay quite well or in
Chinese or German. There is nothing special about learning a subject in a
particular language," he told reporters after giving a talk entitled 'The Quest
for Success' at the Merdeka Award Lecture Series, here.

He said many people had gained knowledge even in the Malay language and that
Mathematics was a symbolic language, which could be learnt in any language
whatsover.

"In 1974, we took Malay students in Pusat Asasi Sains (Science Foundation
Centre) in University Malaya. The graduates of Pusat Asasi Sains Thursday are
specialists in the medical fields and they earn more than RM40,000 a month and
they did it all in the Malay language. Thus, language is not the issue," he
said.


Ungku Aziz also said that the Malay language could be the vehicle to ensure
the achievement of national unity.

"You can only have national unity if everybody can understand each other
in one language. If people can speak English, Mandarin or Tamil but they cannot
speak Malay then we can never have national unity," he said.

Ungku Aziz also said the nation's education system did not promote creative
thinking and as long as the system practised the multiple-choice system in
examinations, people will not be creative.

"At least you must have one subject on thinking, be it creative thinking
or lateral thinking in school right up to tertiary level," he said.

The talk is the third of six of the Merdeka Award Talks for 2008/2009
jointly organised by Petronas, ExxonMobil and Shell.

-- BERNAMA