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ADUN SPEAKS | The country’s vernacular schools face many challenges. Here I am referring to the Chinese and Tamil schools that are popular in their respective ethnic communities rather than the national schools.
Malaysia’s education system gives the impression that vernacular schools are at odds with national schools.
The answer is yes and no.
Parents have the option of sending their children to vernacular schools or to national elementary schools.
After spending six years in primary school, students can transition to national secondary schools.
In a way, it can be said that the vernacular primary schools complement the national schools.
The competition between them is only at the primary level.
There is another option. The more economically well-off families can also send their children to international schools where they can choose the curriculum to follow.
The formal establishment of the vernacular came as a result of a political pact between the main races of the country just before political independence.
One type of consociational arrangement provided for the acceptance of Bahasa Malaysia as a national language and the use of languages such as Mandarin and Tamil in schools.
The existence of vernacular schools was plagued by political and ethnic tensions from the beginning. Competing ethnic nationalisms not only strengthened vernacular schools, but also called for their elimination.
Calls from certain sectors of society to unite the three different types of school systems into a single national system did not materialize.
Calling for a single system of education only accelerated the ethnic or linguistic nationalism that served to strengthen the vernacular schools.
As the national schools became identified with the interests of the Malays and their religion, the fervor for the vernacular schools increased in their respective communities.
At present, most of the school-going children of the Chinese and Indian communities go to vernacular schools.
However, I have been informed that between 18 and 20 percent of the students in Chinese vernacular schools are from the Malay community.
Malaysian parents are sending their children to Chinese schools to acquire Mandarin knowledge and skills in science subjects.
It is obvious that ethnic nationalism takes a back seat when parents decide to send their children to schools that can provide a good and solid education.
While vernacular schools may have a slight quality advantage over national schools, there are serious challenges to the continuation of the former.
The arguments that …
