Workers' Party Member of Parliament (MP) Chen Show Mao filed a Committee of Supply (COS) Cut on Tuesday evening (March 3), suggesting that the Ministry of Education (MOE) make the learning of Malay compulsory in primary schools.

In previous years (2017 and 2018), Chen had also asked the MOE if they could look into encouraging students to attain a basic level of proficiency in Malay.

Each community should focus on learning their mother tongue: Ong Ye Kung

Education Minister Ong Ye Kung addressed Chen's suggestion during his speech on Wednesday (March 4).

He said that it is better to emphasise the learning of a student's own mother tongue and added, "many students are already finding that quite challenging".

However, Ong said that MOE has been encouraging students to learn the language of another community at a conversational level.

Currently, over half of the primary schools and around 40 per cent of secondary schools are currently offering Conversational Malay and Chinese.

Conversational ASEAN languages

Ong acknowledged, however, that there's value for students to learn to converse in regional languages.

He also explained how MOE is doing more to foster a deeper appreciation of Asia as a region through refreshing the school curriculum.

For instance, more trips to Asian countries will be organised. Students will be encouraged to learn a third language if they have the aptitude and interest for it.

The learning of conversational ASEAN languages, starting with Vietnamese and Thai, will also be paired to overseas school trips.

Ong said that by pairing the learning of conversational ASEAN languages with overseas school trips, "learning is more meaningful and can be immediately applied".

Top photo via gov.sg screengrab