Our Education, Our Future

Apologies for the lack of posts over the weekend. I took my family up to Cameron Highlands over the weekend and my wife, not surprisingly, wouldn't be too pleased if I glued myself to the computer screen. Although, with my newly registered Digi wireless access, surfing and email right up there was actually pretty good :-)

Still, I actually managed to have a decent chat with a senior leader of a local political party over coffee and some of the experiences he related with regards to his daughter's school were pretty alarming.

I have previously written my many concerns of the state of unity of Malaysian students of various races in our education system. Read for example, "The Separation of Races" or "Maximus Ongkili on National Unity". I strongly believe that while it is difficult to change a "racially-biased" mindset of a 45-year old adult, the country's young should be shielded from such unhealthy manners of thinking to forge friendships and relationships not based on race or religion. If our children are not allowed to do that, then there will be little hope for unity in Malaysia in the future.

Apparently at the secondary school (SMK), the administrators have begun practising unmandated quota systems for the allocation of students into their respective classes. The top class in the school, based on results tends to be mostly Chinese, due to the fact that one of the Chinese primary schools acts as a feeder to the SMK. (The school consists of 60-70% Chinese.) However, there was apparently an unwritten rule that bumiputera students will always take up some 10-15 seats in the top classes irrespective of results (out of 40 students per class).

Without going into the merits or demerits of such affirmative actions - I was actually quite upset to hear of the behaviour of some of the Chinese students in the school. It was apparently quite common for the Chinese students to look down upon and gang up against the Malay students in the class.

They would for example, openly chide the Malays that they were not supposed to be in the class and were adverse to offering assistance to any of them, whether in areas related to their studies or otherwise. There were also instances whereby even school talent contest took an ugly racial slant where the Chinese students would gang up against the minority Malay students when the latter were apparently not too impressed with one of the Chinese performers! These were 14 year old girls!

These poor Malay girls being outnumbered, unsurprising remained silent and took whatever verbal diatribe which was meted out to them without retaliating or rebutting. But one will completely understand if they grew up to be unfriendly toward the Chinese for all the unjust racially-biased "punishment" meted out to them in school. After all, it was not these students' decision to have a policy and culture of affirmative action in our education system. And in all probabilities, it was the school's administrators who used their arbitrary powers to institute the "quota" policies in the schools. As far as I'm concerned, there are no directives from the education department for such practices.

I must say, that despite knowing that racial separation exists in our Malaysian secondary schools, I did not imagine that the state of affairs could be as bad as the above. My only hope is that the scenario at the above school is an exception, but it is probably unlikely to be so. (Read also: "School Trends Reveal Cracks in Malaysia's Unity")

What could cause such race-based invective at our secondary schools which today, are bring "together" students from national-based primary schools as well as the Chinese vernacular schools which are attended by 90% of Chinese school-going children? It is probably easiest to place all the blame on Malaysia's much criticised New Economic Policy (NEP) and our leaders which entrench the culture of excessive affirmative action-based policies.

However, wrong as NEP may be, it does not justify such disgraceful behaviour by Chinese students in school. We all know that life is "unfair", but that doesn't justify us kicking out at everything that is supposedly "fairer" for others. By just suggesting the following as a plausible cause, or at least a perpectuator of such racially-biased and intolerant behaviour amongst our Chinese school students, I'm expecting to be vilified by the militant protectors of Chinese vernacular education in Malaysia.

Yes, I'm suggesting outright for the first time, although I have hinted at my thoughts previously, that the dual education system in Malaysia which is separated along racial lines is playing a potentially huge role in enlarging the fault lines preventing racial unity in Malaysia.

Before I get flamed, let me state categorically that I fully respect the rights of the Chinese to set up Chinese schools and the Indians, theirs. But my contention is not about "rights". My issue is about education and national unity. There are plenty of flaws with the national school system, but one would have to be blind to say that there aren't issues with the vernacular education system. I have stated before that I believe that the Chinese schools are producing Chinese students who tend to be less inclined to mix racially and more inclined towards racially biased opinions. This behaviours obviously do not afflict everyone from Chinese schools, but by and large, it affects a very substantial population of graduates from the Chinese primary schools.

This issue is one of the biggest political hot potatoes of all times and I do not expect it to be resolved overnight. There is just no chance of that happening anytime soon. But it is about time for everyone - from the education authorities as well as the Chinese educationists to begin thinking about a single "new" national school system which will integrate students of all races together, while at the same time playing its role in supporting, preserving and perpectuating the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural practices and believes of each of the Malaysian ethnic communities.

I'm not advocating for the immediate closure of all vernacular schools for that is not the solution as our existing national schools have its well known shortcomings. I'm however, advocating for greater open-mindedness amongst all communities, for the sake of our future generations, Malaysia's future, to build an education system which will serve to unify all races in this country instead of entrenching and accentuating the racial separation and seggregation. We are a long way from the ideal system, but we need to start somewhere, sometime.