PENGAJARAN DAN PEMBELAJARAN SAINS DAN MATEMATIK DALAM BAHASA INGGERIS (PPSMI): SUATU ISU BERULANG

The controversial policy of teaching Science and Mathematics in English (ETeMS) was implemented in the Malaysian school system since 2003. This policy had passed through a complete cycle where form one secondary students and Malaysian Matriculation College who were affected by this policy have entered higher institution of education specifically in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Skudai, Johor. This paper will give an insight of the impact of the policy on the students affected based on sample of students taken at random in several faculties in UTM. This study focused on the impact of ETeMS on three aspects: student’s readiness, enthusiasm and confidence. A total of 309 third year students from Faculty of Education, Faculty of Science and Faculty of Mechanical Engineering were taken as samples. An instrument to measure the level of student’s readiness, enthusiasm and confidence was a questionnaire containing 34 items with five choices of response using Likert scale along with two open-ended questions. Reliability value of the instrument was = 0.895. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the data analysis. As a whole, the result showed that the level of student’s readiness, enthusiasm and confidence were average and less satisfactory in scores. However, the majority of the students agreed with the implementation of the policy and stated that ETeMS is instrumental in improving their command of English and is neccessary for their future undertakings.