Page leader Noor Azimah Rahim suggested that the government start the revival in Sabah, Sarawak and Johor. She claimed that there would be little resistance against English schools in the three states.
The government could then pick students from such schools and send them for training as English teachers, she added.
The call to action was prompted by member of parliament Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s recent complaint about poor English-language skills among civil servants.
Razaleigh said he was embarrassed to find that a lot of civil servants could not even write a simple letter in English.
Azimah suggested that applicants for jobs in the civil service be required to have a high score in English language proficiency.
She recalled the phasing out of English medium national schools in Malaysia, which began after May 1969.
“Proficiency in the English language was allowed to deteriorate and now several generations have lost the ability to converse in it, let alone write,” she told Free Malaysia Today, adding that this had been detrimental to the nation.
“We have to face the fact that Malay medium schools are unable to produce fine English language teachers. A society that values and places a high regard on the teaching profession will be the successful one. We had it once. It’s time to get back to that.”
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