‘Give us the necessary and adequate education. If others are not keen to compete with those 'outside' or cannot accept the importance of English, don't deprive the rest.'

On English policy: Time to make a stand

Teokeloomangoop: If we are ever going to be competitive in the 21st century, we must set a higher goal than this.

English is the passport required to be successful in education and learning.

A pass in English is not enough; I suggest a credit 5 or higher as a pre-requisite for PSD scholarships. Don't make it too easy otherwise everyone will qualify.

Baiyuensheng: I strongly agree with this and am of the personal opinion that a credit in BM and English should be a must for the SPM certificate.

In fact, science and mathematics should be taught in English. If need to be, let's have national- type schools in BM (with one compulsory English subject) and national-type schools in English (with BM and Chinese as compulsory subjects).

Leave the vernacular and religious schools as they are. Let's have choices. You might ask how about integration?

But we don't have it Malaysia anyway with the current existing politics and prevailing environment so let's accept this fact and focus on diversity.

Give us non-Malays the necessary and adequate education. If not the Malays, then let the other races be equipped so they can hold the Malaysian flag high and stand tall among the world's elites.

I am not suggesting that there is no contribution from the Malays. But if they are not keen to compete with those 'outside' or cannot accept the importance of English, don't deprive the rest.

Timmy Say: Yes, yes! All of us want to learn good English. But everyone miss the point - do we have the teachers who can teach us good English?

Is there any one of us with good proficiency in English who wants to go back to school to teach our children?

Try taking some annual leave and go around the public schools and see how your children are being taught science and mathematics in English.

You'll be surprised to find out that not only have your children failed to learn science and mathematics correctly, they've messed up your children's English language as well.

For a start, we shouldn't dramatically change the English policy for our primary and secondary schools.

We should start by implementing the English medium for all universities and teaching colleges to ensure the next batch of teachers all can speak fluent English.

This before we move to transform our primary and secondary school systems. This sounds like the best way forward. What say you, Tan Sri Muhyiddin?

Ahmad Kamal: Minister Rais Yatim's threat to charge Namewee under the Sedition Act and whatever else for the ‘Negarakuku' incident is a tad childish at this time.

This is so since Namewee through his parents and the offices of Chua Soi Lek, had apologised to Malaysians in 2007 as demanded by the ministry under Rais.

The Sedition Act is a notorious act after the ISA and (mis)used after May 13.

The Sedition Act is tainted with the political infamy of May 13 and it is a rare Malaysian who thinks that the Sedition Act can be defended under principles of democracy, transparency and good governance.

So give it up Rais.

On AirAsia's on-time performance over 80%

Donplaypuks: I think the above does not answer the specific complaint that by cancelling and re-scheduling flights, AirAsia forces its customers to change their travel plans at their inconvenience without adequate compensation.

I, and I am sure many others, do not accept AirAsias implied message that a 20% failure rate is acceptable.

In fact, this failure is deplorable by any international standard! AirAsia should not try and deflect this criticism by obfuscation and faceless public rerlations spin-speak.

I put forward the view that it is totally illegal to force any customer to accept a cancellation and re-scheduling of flights if the customer is blameless and the re-scheduling is not to the customer's convenience.

In such cases, if the customer requests so, AirAsia should refund the fare in full, without deducting or charging any administration or finance charges.

In the same way customers sit at home and secure their AirAsia ticket through the Internet, the refund should be made on-line by AirAsia and the customer informed by e-mail.

Let us have some plain straight answers from AirAsia instead of bureaucracy-speak.