The Malay Heritage Foundation (MHF) invited Dr. Mohamed Aidil Subhan Bin Mohamed Sulor for the fifth session of the Cendekiawan Lestari Series (CLS) as the guest speaker this September. He is an educator with over 30 years of teaching experience on a primary, secondary and tertiary level. Dr. Aidil has published 2 books about Malay language planning in Singapore and he is currently a senior lecturer in curriculum and pedagogy at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.
Saturday, 11 September 2021 — Dr. Aidil’s topic of choice for CLS in conjunction with Bulan Bahasa (Malay Language Month) is “Bahasa Melayu Dijunjung, Bahasa Inggeris Digendong — Perancangan Bahasa Melayu di Singapura Menjelang 2065” (Revering the Malay Language in an English-knowing Environment — Malay Language Planning in Singapore towards 2065). In attendance was Mr. Khairudin Saharom, a member of MHF’s board of directors. He delivered an opening speech to introduce the speaker and welcome the virtual audiences as the CLS #05 moderator.
Mr. Khairudin began the live stream session by thanking the virtual audiences for supporting the series online. He then gave a quick recap of the past four CLS speakers; Professor Yaacob Ibrahim, Professor Syed Farid Alatas, Cikgu Maarof Salleh and Assoc. Professor Dr. Hadijah bte Rahmat. Right after the brief introduction, he invited the speaker, Dr. Aidil, to the podium to commence his lecture.
Dr. Aidil opened the CLS lecture with a poem and setting the context regarding his topic of choice, which will discuss the historical development of the Malay language in Singapore. The lecture aims to unravel the planning of the Malay Language in Singapore towards the year 2065. Dr. Aidil shared that the views in this lecture are based on two of his publications titled, “Bilingualism and Malay Language Planning in Singapore (2018)” and “Issues in Malay Language Planning: Heart Truths (2020)”.
Dr. Aidil shared statistics of the dominant home language for Malay residents in Singapore aged 5 and over. From the 1980 – 2000 period, the percentage of Malay language as a dominant home language stayed above 90%. When Dr. Aidil began his study on this, many researchers of different races commented that the Malay language has no issues in maintaining its home language at all. Looking at more recent statistics, however, for the first time, the numbers plummeted below 90%. In 2010, the percentage dropped to 82.7%, and last year, in 2020, only 60.7% of Malay residents practice the Malay language at home. These numbers are worrying and because of this, Dr. Aidil stressed that there is a pressing need to discuss how and why this happened and also, how we can deal with this situation together as a community.
Now that the issue at hand is addressed, to begin uncovering reasons why the use of the Malay language at home in Singapore is decreasing, Dr. Aidil began his analysis with an overview of language planning in Singapore from the past. According to him, the golden days of the Malay language in Singapore happened between 1965 to 1978. This is because plenty of Malay schools existed in the past. Sekolah Melayu Kota Raja (Kota Raja Malay School) is an example of one of the Malay schools that was active back in the day. The school often hosts Malay language activities on the weekend such as bahas (debate) competitions for the primary level.
Fast forward to the 1979 – 1991 period, there was a big change in the education system in Singapore. A review by the Minister of Education then observed that our bilingual system is not desired. It does not produce individuals who are fluent in both English and Mandarin. Dr. Aidil emphasised this point because right after this issue was highlighted, each report that was implemented in educational planning used Mandarin and English language as the nationwide bilingual context. Interestingly, the Malay language was still highly used at that time, as brought up previously in the percentage data. Therefore, there was never a need to implement any planning for the Malay language.
From the 1992 – 2010 period, additional special school programmes such as EMAS (Elective Programme in Malay Language for Secondary Schools) and Malay Language Elective Programme (MLEP) were introduced. Here, the revival of interest in the Malay language began to thrive. Interested students with higher levels of language proficiency have been given the space to learn and develop further. Although these programs are not devoted to planning the Malay language exclusively, Malay language education planning can certainly benefit from this change.
From 2011 to present day, the current Minister of Education stressed the importance of values in education and promoted the concept of “joy of learning”. After an overview of the Malay language in Singapore’s education system over the years, Dr. Aidil moved the lecture on to his next point. He posed a question to the virtual audience, “What exactly is language planning, and how does it directly impact the Malay language and the usage of Malay language in Singapore?”.
To answer this question, we take a look at language status planning. Dr. Aidil explained that the Malay language in Singapore plays a dual role. Its functions are twofold – national and official. On the other hand, Mother Tongue can be considered as playing the role of a cultural custodian. That explains the title of the lecture, “Bahasa Melayu Dijunjung, Bahasa Inggeris Digendong”. We must continue to uphold the Malay language and carry the English language in a similar vein. Dr. Aidil added that the English language cannot be left out in the context of Singapore entirely.
Hence, there needs to be a change in the way we teach. Now, the Malay language is being taught by using the language itself. Perhaps, maybe in 2065, there is a need for us to teach the Malay language using the students’ common language (not necessarily in Malay). This is due to the possibility that the Malay language may no longer be the common lingua franca of our students at home. As a result, we need to have a bilingual strategy but this must be given deep thought. More research needs to be done and there needs to be a change of mindset for our society to accept it according to Dr. Aidil.
The government has undertaken many initiatives. For example, since 2018, there are courses for preschool teachers to be given accreditation to teach the Malay language. Dr. Aidil observed a lot of bilingual books are available as well on the various social media platforms. However, parents do have a part to play in this effort as well. Dr. Aidil concluded the lecture with suggestions that families should provide ample space for discussion with their children, and at the same time, children need to hear their parents regularly conversing in Malay. In the long run, this family initiative could improve our use of the Malay language at home daily.
At the end of his lecture, Dr. Aidil answered several questions posed by the participants online via a live Q&A app, Slido. The fifth CLS registrations were closed a week before due to full capacity; however, the usual on-site lecture was moved online after the government announced that social gatherings and interactions in the workplace will no longer be allowed due to the rise in COVID-19 cases recently. Despite this, the CLS still managed to draw a healthy number of virtual audiences via MHF’s Facebook live stream. In total, close to 1,000 viewers were reached via the FB Live.
CLS is one of MHF’s new initiatives to provide a discursive platform in featuring ideas and perspectives from prominent figures and key thought-leaders in the Singapore Malay community. There will be one last speaker scheduled to present in October 2021.
Useful Links
- Full video
- Dr. Aidil Subhan’s paper
- Mr. Khairudin Saharom’s opening speech
- BERITA Mediacorp — Mungkinkah bahasa Melayu diajar dalam bahasa Inggeris pada tahun 2065? by Hakim Irwan — 12 Sep 2021
- VOCKET — Ilmuwan Singapura Jangka Bahasa Melayu Akan Diajar Dalam Bahasa Inggeris Pada Masa Hadapan by Aiman — 13 Sep 2021
- BERITA Mediacorp — Bahasa Melayu Dijunjung, Bahasa Inggeris Digendong by Dr. Mohamed Aidil Subhan — 16 Sep 2021