I REFER to the article entitled “Bring back English schools” by Zainal Ariffin (NST, May 21) who, among other things, said: “Bring back the English schools as an alternative to national schools.

“If we can have Chinese and Tamil schools, why not English schools, which already exist for the elite in the form of private or international schools? Some of the business and political elite even send their kids to school in English-speaking countries.”

Why not make English-medium education more affordable to the public by reintroducing English-medium schools? Such schools existed in the 1960s and 1970s as national-type English schools.

They were eventually converted into national schools with the medium of instruction being the national language.

Coming back to the question of whether the policy of teaching Mathematics and Science in English should be continued, I have this to say:

According to studies carried out in 1996, more than 3,000 books are published daily in the English language. The amount of new technological knowledge is doubling every two years.

For students starting a four-year technical degree course in the United States, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated in their third year .

It is expected to double every 72 hours by the year 2010. If such new technical knowledge were to be translated, there would be a significant time lag between the first publication of such knowledge in English and the subsequent publication of the translated version.

Our children, if they are to remain competitive in this fast changing world, must be able to keep abreast of new discoveries through the English language.

Countries like China and Japan, which never had a history of English use, are going out in a big way to master the language. Soon, China will become the No 1 English-speaking country in the world.

M. GANESHADEVA, Kuala Lumpur

Source: NST – May 26, 2008