“English has always been important in higher education. Academics should know that they have to communicate with their peers abroad in English,” Aziz told FMT today.

“Even where English is the second language, like in Korea, Japan or even Germany, English is necessary.”

Aziz was referring to a comment by fellow academician Prof Ghauth Jasmon, a former Universiti Malaya vice-chancellor, who had yesterday slammed local public academics for their long-time resistance to the English language.

Ghauth, who was UM vice-chancellor from 2008 to 2013, said he had faced a lot of resistance from lecturers when he asked them to submit their research and paperwork to International Scientific Indexing (ISI) journals.

“They petitioned against me. They wanted to remove me. ISI journals have to be in English. They felt I was not in support of the Malay language”, said Ghauth.

Aziz said that the lecturers’ response did not make sense and that it was not the way to defend the Malay language.

“As much as I am pro-differences of opinion, this is not proper. This is the wrong thing to have a tug-of-war over.

“The point is that you’ve got to communicate with the international community.

“I just wonder why there are still professors who are so against this.”

Ghauth had also faced resistance from both lecturers and students when he wanted to improve students’ soft skills, such as having extra English classes.

“The backlash to that was bad. There were demonstrations, encouraged by lecturers. They accused me of making Malay language as the second language. For the next one year, I had to continuously write to newspapers on the reasons for my move,” he said.

Ghauth said that vice-chancellors should not give in to pressure as they knew their measures were for the betterment of the country. It was not about being in the good books of everyone, he said.

Of late, employers have stated that graduates with a strong command of English stood a better chance of landing jobs.