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English as a medium of instruction in
Asian education (from primary to tertiary):
Implications for local languages
and local scholarship
ANDY KIRKPATRICK
Abstract
This article will review and critique the general trends towards the significant
increase in the teaching of English and the use of English as a medium of in-
struction in education throughout East and Southeast Asia. I shall focus on
two levels. First I shall discuss the situation as regards the role of English in
primary schools and then consider its role in tertiary education. I shall argue
that the trend towards the ever earlier introduction of English into the pri-
mary curriculum, along with the push for the relevant national language, is not
only pedagogically ill-advised for the great majority of primary school chil-
dren in the region, but also represents a serious threat to local languages and,
perhaps most importantly, to children’s sense of identity. The increasing trend
towards English–medium programmes at the tertiary level also threatens local
languages and the status and value of knowledge and scholarship written and
disseminated in languages other than English. At the same time, ‘indigenous’
knowledge disseminated through English, while it may reach an international
audience, may be essentially reframed through being translated into English.
I shall conclude with recommendations designed to encourage multilingualism
in local languages at the primary level and the implementation of bilingual
policies at the tertiary level.
Keywords: language education; multilingualism; English as a medium of
instruction; local scholarship
1. Introduction
This article will review and critique the general trends towards the significant
increase in the teaching of English and the use of English as a medium of
instruction in education throughout East and Southeast Asia.
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100 Andy Kirkpatrick
In almost all countries of Asia, English has now become a core course in
primary schools. Indonesia is an exception, where English remains an optional
subject at primary level, but even there parental demand means that primary
schools are required to offer English. Indonesia is also currently experiment-
ing with international standard schools, known as SBIs from their Indonesian
acronym sekolah bertaraf internasional. These SBIs use English as a medium
of instruction for maths and science, theoretically from primary 4 but, in effect,
often from primary 1.
Throughout the rest of Asia, English is a compulsory subject in primary
school and is gradually being introduced earlier and earlier into the curriculum.
For example, in China it is now officially introduced at primary 3, but many
schools, especially those in urban areas, teach English from primary 1. In some
countries it is even a medium of instruction in primary school. This is currently
the case in Malaysia and the Philippines, for example, where maths and science
are taught through English from primary 1, although both countries have recently
announced changes in this regard, which will be discussed below. Brunei primary
schools will teach maths and science through English from 2011. In Singapore
schools, English is the medium of instruction for all subjects, other than foreign
languages (Kirkpatrick 2010).
At the tertiary level, the number of programmes offered through English is
increasing across Asia, especially, but not exclusively, at the postgraduate level.
This is partly explained by the desire of universities to internationalize, and, as
I shall argue below, ‘internationalization’ can often mean ‘Englishization’.
In the next section, the situation with regard to language education and
the role(s) of English in primary schools and the consequences of this will be
considered. I shall then consider the role of English as a medium of instruction at
the tertiary level and conclude with recommendations designed to help maintain
multilingualism at both the primary and tertiary levels.
2. English in Primary Schools
I shall use, as a starting point, the situation in the ten countries which make
up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). These are, in al-
phabetical order, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Of these countries, five (Brunei,
Malaysia, Myanmar, The Philippines and Singapore) were once colonies of En-
glish speaking nations, three (Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam) were part of the
French colonial enterprise, Indonesia was a Dutch colony and only Thailand
escaped colonisation. These varied colonial histories have had an effect upon
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English as a medium of instruction in Asian education (from primary to tertiary) 101
the role of English in each, with the former colonies of Great Britain and the
United States retaining a strong institutional role for English (with the excep-
tion of Myanmar). However, English has replaced French and Dutch as the first
‘foreign’ language in the school systems of the other ex-colonial nations and
English is also the first foreign language taught in the Thai school system. I have
described the role of English in ASEAN in detail elsewhere (Kirkpatrick 2010),
so here briefly mention that the ASEAN Charter, which was signed in Febru-
ary 2009, gives English a privileged status, making it the sole official working
language of the group. This is one explanation why countries such as Cambo-
dia and Vietnam have adopted English in place of French as their first foreign
language. Other reasons for the privileging of English are familiar and include
the desire of nations to participate in and benefit from internationalization and
the knowledge economy (Rappa and Wee 2006).
In addition to seeking to participate in internationalization, nine of the ten
countries ofASEAN achieved independence only relatively recently and are thus
also each seeking to establish a distinct national identity. The adoption and pro-
motion of a national language is a natural and effective way of doing this. This
explains why, in Indonesia and the Philippines to take just two examples, the re-
spective governments have expended so many resources into establishing their
national languages, Bahasa Indonesia and Filipino. Both countries are richly
multilingual. Some seven hundred languages are spoken in Indonesia (Hadisan-
tosa 2010) and more than one hundred in the Philippines (Galang 2000). Both
have national language institutes (the Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembanan Ba-
hasa in Indonesia and the Komyson sa Wakang Filipino in the Philippines),
one of whose tasks has been to promote and modernize the national languages
(Alisjahbana 1976; Gonzalez 2007). In this, Indonesia has probably been more
successful than the Philippines. Reasons for the relative success of the Indone-
sian people’s acceptance of Bahasa Indonesia include the fact that it is based
on Malay, a language which was spoken by only a tiny (3%) minority of the
population, and thus was not seen to privilege a powerful group. Indeed this was
one reason why Javanese, the language of the powerful and spoken by 75 mil-
lion people, was not chosen to be the national language. In contrast, Filipino
is based on Tagalog, the language spoken in and around the capital, Manila.
This explains why many Filipinos are still not comfortable with the idea of a
Tagalog-based language as the national language. For example, many Cebuano
speakers – who themselves outnumber Tagalog speakers – prefer to speak En-
glish rather than Filipino as a language of national communication. This may be
more a question of attitude than linguistic proficiency. As the Filipino scholar
Tupas, himself a speaker of two Visayan languages, Aklanon and Ilongo, points
out, Filipino is the national language and “it is now more of an issue of atti-
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102 Andy Kirkpatrick
tudes, not inability, to speak the national language” (2007:32). One measure of
the success of the national language is based on the number of speakers. The
table below (adapted from Montolalu and Suryadinata 2007: 48) shows, over a
period of twenty years, the shifting percentages of Indonesians reporting that
they are first language speakers of particular languages.
Table 1. Vernacular Language Speakers in 1980, 1990, 2000
Language 1980 1990 2000
Javanese 40.44% 38.08% 34.70%
Sundanese 15.06% 15.26% 13.86%
Madurese 4.71% 4.29% 3.78%
Batak 2.12% 1.97% 1.91%
Minangkabau 2.42% 2.23% 2.06%
Balinese 1.69% 1.64% 1.42%
Buginese 2.26% 2.04% 1.91%
Indonesian (BI ) 11.93% 17.11% 34.00%
Others 17.48% 17.11% 4.57%
The figures for the seven local languages listed here appear relatively stable.
What is remarkable is the increase in those who reported that they consider
themselves first language speakers of Bahasa Indonesia (from 11.93 percent
in 1980 to 34 percent in 2000) and the drop from 17.48 percent in 1980 to
4.57 percent of those who consider themselves speakers of vernacular languages
other than the ones listed. This would suggest that many of the 700 or more
languages of Indonesia are under increasing threat. We can probably safely
assume that the relative increase in first language speakers of BI and decrease of
speakers of vernaculars will have been maintained over the most recent decade.
Note that the figures for BI represent those who see themselves as first language
speakers.This increase in first language speakers of BI can be attributed to social
and geographical mobility, and the increase in inter-ethnic marriage associated
with this. Children of ‘mixed’ marriages who find themselves living in urban
areas will tend to develop BI as a first language, especially as this is the language
of education.
The success of BI as a national language has done much to establish a sense
of pan-Indonesian identity among the population. On the other hand, its very
success as a national language has had a negative influence upon many local
languages. This negative influence is greatly exacerbated by the adoption of
English as the first second language taught in the school system. Apart from
anything else, the inclusion of English into the primary curriculum is always at
the expense of another subject. A local language is the most commonly sacri-
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English as a medium of instruction in Asian education (from primary to tertiary) 103
ficed subject. As Hadisantosa reports in her evaluation of the new SBI schools
“. . . with (the) emerging and mushrooming demand for English, schools then
drop the local language in order to give more time to the English teaching. As a
result, in the long run, children and the younger generation can no longer speak
the local language. This is culturally and linguistically pitiful” (2010: 31).
Remembering that Indonesia remains the sole nation which does not make
English a compulsory subject, this pattern is replicated in even starker relief
throughout Asia. For example, Vietnam has recently embarked on its ‘National
2020 English Initiatives’ under which all primary school graduates are to achieve
a level of English equivalent to the Common European Framework of Reference
(CEFR) scales of A1 or A2 and all college graduates should have a working
knowledge of English. (Hung and Duzdik 2010). While it is encouraging to see
some move away from the more traditional Anglo-based testing tools, such as
TOEFL or IELTS in the adoption of the CEFR scales (the plan is to adapt these to
theVietnamese context, but this has not yet taken place), the programme remains
extremely ambitious. It will require the re-training of 62,000 secondary English
teachers alone. An indication of the challenge lies in the fact that of the 250
EFL teachers tested in a trial project (and where the test used was the TOEFL)
only 28 scored more than 500 (the very minimum required by some English-
medium universities) and more than 50 scored less than 350 (a level equating to
basic literacy only). One reason, but not the only one, for the recommendation
below that the primary school should focus on local languages is that there
simply are not enough primary level teachers with adequate English proficiency
to be able to teach English. Consider, for example, the scale of the problem in
China, where English is a compulsory subject from primary 3. It is impossible
to estimate the number of primary schools in China, but the assumption that
there are enough qualified and linguistically proficient English teachers to be
able to provide quality English language teaching in all of them is unrealistic.
If there are insufficient teachers to teach English as a subject in primary
schools, there is an even more serious shortage of subject-specialist teachers
who are expected to teach maths and science through the medium of English.
At present, in addition to Singapore, both Malaysia and the Philippines expect
primary 1 children to learn maths and science through English.The problems as-
sociated with this have recently been recognized by both governments. Malaysia
has announced a radical change of policy and that maths and science will be
taught through the national language, Malay, from 2012. Reasons for this change
include the realization that many children from the lower socio-economic classes
and rural areas were failing these subjects and that there were not enough qual-
ified teachers with adequate proficiency in English to teach them. The then
Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister is reported in the Star newspaper of July 7
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104 Andy Kirkpatrick
2009 saying that ‘Only 19.2 percent of secondary teachers and 9.96 percent of
primary teachers were sufficiently proficient in English’.
Two quotes from the debate over the medium of instruction controversy,
recorded in the New Straits Times of 21 March 2009, help illustrate the different
points of view. The first comes from a Chinese Malaysian, who remarks:
They (the students) can’t even understand English; how can you make them study
Science and Maths in English?
The second quote comes from an opponent to the first speaker, an ethnic Malay
who nevertheless defends the use of English over Malay, arguing that, unlike
Mandarin and English, Malay (Bahasa) is not an international language, which
is why the policy of using English as a medium of instruction (PPSMI) needs
to stay:
Mandarin is an international language, that’s where the Malays are at a disadvan-
tage. Because Bahasa is not an international language, that’s why we are fighting
and want PPSMI to be retained, because it’s an advantage to the Malays.
The argument that, as English is the language associated with modernization, it
needs to be used to teach subjects like maths and science, is common. But, as
I think most readers will agree, science and maths are cognitively demanding
subjects and are therefore best taught in the learner’s first language.As Bernardo
has eloquently argued in proposing the learning of maths and science through
local languages in the Philippines, “there seems to be no theoretical or empirical
basis...toobligatetheuseofEnglishinteachingmathematics’ and that, ‘there
are clear and consistent advantages to using the student’s first language...atthe
stage of learning where the student is acquiring the basic understanding of the
various mathematical concepts and procedures” (2000:13).
Many researchers support this position in arguing that cognitively complex
subjects should not be taught through a foreign language until the learner has
achieved a certain level of proficiency in the language. Some three decades ago,
Cummins (1981) showed that migrant children to Canada required between 5
and 7 years learning English before they could use it successfully as an academic
language. It is worth noting that, in the Canadian context, the children had much
more access to English than students in Asian schools. Benson has similarly
suggested that “being taught an academic content through the L2 represents a
multiple burden for the learner” (2008:2)
Many Filipino children are faced with this multiple burden. The Philippines
has, since 1975, implemented a bilingual education policy (BEP), through which
children learn maths and science through English, and other subjects through
Filipino. But as reported above, Filipino is, in effect, Tagalog, the language of
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English as a medium of instruction in Asian education (from primary to tertiary) 105
Manila, by another name. This means that a child from the Cebu region, whose
first language might be Bohol and whose second might be Cebuano, arrives in
primary 1 having to learn in two new languages. This, along with research that
showed the efficacy of mother tongue education (e.g., Walker and Dekker 2008),
is why the Philippines government has recently announced that the use of the
vernacular as a medium of instruction will be allowed from primary 1 to primary
3 in certain circumstances. This is to be welcomed, although most experts would
argue that three years is not enough – at least five years is required (cf Skutnabb-
Kangas et al. 2009) – and the new policy is too new for any evaluation of it to
be made.
The only place in East and SoutheastAsia where it is official policy to use the
local language rather than the national language as the medium of instruction in
primary education is Hong Kong.This is because, in contrast to the rest of China,
Hong Kong can decide on the medium of instruction. In China itself, the national
language law is clear in prescribing the national language, Putonghua, as the
sole medium of instruction, although national minorities are allowed to use their
respective languages as an MoI in primary schools (Kirkpatrick and Xu 2001).
This has meant that Hong Kong has adopted Cantonese, the mother tongue of
the overwhelming majority of the population, as the medium of instruction in
primary schools. However, the increasing influence of China coupled with an
increase in migration from China to Hong Kong, has meant that there is now
