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Education Structure in Malaysia

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Abstract

At present, there are Malay, Chinese and Tamil public schools at the primary education level. This chapter will illustrate the complicated education structure in Malaysia, which makes the creation of national identity and the development of national integration difficult. Education policies to redesign a diverse education structure and to seek the introduction of a single education system with the elimination of non-Malay schools, especially the 1961 Education Act and the 1996 Education Act, will be explained. In addition, a new approach to promote ethnic interaction for the development of national integration will be explained.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Bumiputeras include the Malays and other indigenous peoples. This term is used to distinguish the Malays and other indigenous peoples from other ethnic groups. Recognising that Bumiputeras’ socio-economic status lags behind those of non-Malays, especially the Chinese, the government has indicated a stance that discriminates in favour of Bumiputeras to improve their relative socio-economic position.

  2. 2.

    Non-Malaysian citizens accounted for 3.26 million persons, or 10.3 per cent of the country’s population (Prime Minister’s Department Malaysia 2017).

  3. 3.

    Details of the trajectory of education policies were provided in Segawa (2019).

  4. 4.

    There are other private schools, such as international English-language schools and Islamic religious schools, for primary and secondary education.

  5. 5.

    This report was released on 22 May 1951.

  6. 6.

    However, the report also stated that the position and status of the Malay language should be protected in the national education system (Section 9 of the Barnes Report).

  7. 7.

    The Fenn-Wu Committee released the Fenn-Wu report on 29 June 1951.

  8. 8.

    Some Malays also opposed the ordinance since they regarded it as upgrading the English language and eradicating the Malay language.

  9. 9.

    Tan Chee Beng (1988, 142) claimed that the Barnes Report was unwise in that it denied the need to study one’s mother tongue.

  10. 10.

    In January 1955, the Alliance held a meeting with the UCSTA and the UCSCA and ratified a compromise. While the Alliance promised not to destroy vernacular schools or the languages and cultures of ethnic minorities and to re-examine the 1952 Education Ordinance if the Alliance came to power, the Chinese organisations promised that they would not broach the issue of Chinese language and education until after the election and that they would support the Alliance in the election.

  11. 11.

    Public Record Office in the UK, CAB/130/87.

  12. 12.

    This certificate is currently referred to as the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR).

  13. 13.

    However, the teaching of non-Malay languages in Malay primary schools was not restricted since the 1961 Act (Malaysia 1993, 4) noted that ‘facilities for the teaching of Chinese and Tamil languages shall, if it is reasonable and practicable so to do, be made available if the parents of fifteen children in the (Malay) school so request’.

  14. 14.

    However, the 1961 Education Act (Malaysia 1993, 5) permitted schools to teach the Chinese and Tamil languages in national and national-type secondary schools if the parents of 15 children requested it.

  15. 15.

    Under the 1952 and 1957 Education Ordinances, Chinese secondary schools received some public funds.

  16. 16.

    Section 70 of the Razak Report argued that ‘there is sufficient flexibility in the curriculum to allow schools or parts of schools to give particular attention to various languages and cultures’, and Section 72 reported that ‘we see no educational objection to the learning of three languages in secondary schools or to the use of more than one language in the same school as a medium of instruction’.

  17. 17.

    In Malay and English secondary schools, the teaching of the Chinese language would be made available at the request of the parents of at least 15 children in the school (Malaysia 1993, 5). This policy is referred to as the Pupil’s Own Language (POL) programme.

  18. 18.

    Secondary schools that converted to English medium schools are still considered to be Chinese secondary schools by many people since they have continued to teach Chinese as a subject and have retained some of their historical characteristics (Tan Liok Ee 2000, 229). However, in this study, only secondary schools using the Chinese language as a medium of instruction (ICSS) are called Chinese secondary schools.

  19. 19.

    The Malays viewed Chinese education as detrimental to the development of national integration (Lee 2000, 5; Crouch 1996, 159).

  20. 20.

    In addition, the Education Minister can suspend or dismiss the Boards of Governors under Sections 58–62, refuse and cancel the registration of an educational institution under Sections 84 and 85, and refuse to register a governor, an employee or a teacher under Sections 90, 91, 106 and 107. Also, the UMNO Youth assembly in 2001 opposed the construction of new non-Malay schools on the ground that separate schools for different ethnic groups hindered national integration (Tan Liok Ee 2002, 160).

  21. 21.

    The number of Chinese primary schools was 1287 in 1996, 1283 in 1997, 1283 in 1998, 1284 in 1999, 1284 in 2000, 1285 in 2001 and 1286 in 2002 (Ministry of Education Malaysia 1997–2003).

  22. 22.

    The government decided to relocate 13 Chinese primary schools and build 7 new Chinese schools (Chua Soi Lek 2009).

  23. 23.

    In the 9th Malaysia Plan (2006–2010), the government allocated RM 325 million in development funds to Chinese primary schools (Chua Soi Lek 10 October 2010).

  24. 24.

    The government allowed holders of the Unified Examination Certificate, administered by the Chinese independent secondary schools, to enter teacher training institutions, which would help to improve the shortage of Chinese primary school teachers.

  25. 25.

    Additionally, the government promised to provide land for Chong Hwa ICSS to build a sports complex (Anonymous 2011).

  26. 26.

    A credit for Bahasa Malaysia in the SPM and 3 credits in subjects of the Unified Examinations.

  27. 27.

    http://www.mysinchew.com/node/45356?tid=136 (accessed 1 July 2011).

  28. 28.

    Inter-school ethnic polarisation has been observed because of the existence of the ICSSs, although only 10 to 15 per cent of Chinese students enrol in ICSSs.

  29. 29.

    Ethnic polarisation can also be found in tertiary education institutions and workplaces. Very little interethnic mixing has occurred, and almost all groups are composed of people of the same ethnicity on the campuses of tertiary educational institutions (Jayasankaran 2000, 26).

  30. 30.

    Moreover, the existence of Chinese primary schools contributes to inter-school ethnic polarisation in secondary education since almost all ICSS students are Chinese primary school graduates. The results of a survey conducted by the UCSTA in 1983 indicated that 97.8 per cent of ICSS students received their primary educations in Chinese primary schools (Tan Liok Ee 1984, 51 cited in Tan Liok Ee 1988, 67–8).

  31. 31.

    Kua Kia Soong, the most influential Chinese educationist, (2013) argued that the BN government leaders continued to denigrate vernacular schools as obstacles to national integration.

  32. 32.

    The UCSCA, the UCSTA and the Chinese Assembly Hall have reacted sharply to the introduction of a single-stream education system.

  33. 33.

    Approximately 80 per cent of the Chinese population disagreed with the abolition of non-Malay schools, while approximately 60 per cent of Malays and 45 per cent of Indians agreed (Ramiah et al. 2017). According to a survey by Kajidata (2017), 47.4 per cent of respondents oppose the abolition of non-Malay schools.

  34. 34.

    The government has implemented policies to promote ethnic interaction, not only in primary education but also in several other spheres. The government started the National Service Programme in 2004. In the programme, students (18 years of age) from different ethnic, cultural and economic backgrounds, who are chosen by computer ballot, undertake a three-month training programme. Malaysia has implemented neighbourhood schemes that focus on fostering neighbourliness and closer relationships among ethnic communities, mainly through joint patrols, while the government has promoted holding an open house for several religious and ethnic festivals.

  35. 35.

    All of the schools in a Vision School are required to hold combined monthly assemblies in the Malay language, but they hold weekly assemblies separately.

  36. 36.

    The DAP has also emphasised that the BN must scrap the Vision School concept (Anonymous 2002).

  37. 37.

    Interview with the Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur on 9 September 2015.

  38. 38.

    The website of the Education Ministry had a section on Vision Schools in December 2008. The page had disappeared when I accessed the Ministry’s website in October 2011.

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  1. Kindai University, Osaka, Japan

    Noriyuki Segawa

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Segawa, N. (2019). Education Structure in Malaysia. In: Ethnic Relations at School in Malaysia. Palgrave Pivot, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9857-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9857-5_2

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