National vs Vernacular Schools

Hey, I have my first article published in The Sun yesterday, entitled "Schools Debate Not a Zero Sum Game". It was originally rejected by another local daily. I've written various posts on national versus vernacular schools before, particularly from the perspective of where I should send my daugther for school in the coming years. However, this article attempts a balanced look at the important question of how the Government should be treating vernacular schools.

The recently launched National Education Blueprint 2006 by Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein focuses purely on “strengthening the national schools”, with vernacular schools representing just a statistic in Malaysia's education landscape. Vernacular schools are often neglected or treated with suspicion due to their ethnically Chinese or Tamil nature. There are widespread fears that the strengthening or even the presence of vernacular schools in Malaysia is antithetical to achieving national unity.

Chinese and Tamil educationists on the other hand, fear the strengthening of national schools will erode the future character and viability of vernacular schools. For many of them, every facet of the existing vernacular education must be protected at all cost. Otherwise, they fear detractors will pounce on any signs of weakness to destroy vernacular education in this country.

As a result, parties on both sides of the equation treat the issue of national versus vernacular schools as a zero sum game -- one party's gain is the other's loss. However, such views are certainly flawed and works against the interest of a multi-racial and multi-cultural country like Malaysia. They are bred through mistrust and hardened by years of negative experiences.

Even the Education Minister has admitted in an exclusive interview with Nanyang Siangpau that “people should not regard the various types of schools in the country as a hurdle to be cleared. After all, this is not a zero-sum game because multi-culturalism is an added advantage and a strength for the country.” In fact, treating vernacular schools as obstacles to national unity is akin to the fallacious argument that national unity can only be achieved through cultural assimilation.

Hence, the only way to break this self-perpetuating cycle of combativeness and mutual distrust is, well, to build trust. It is important for the government and its officials to gain the confidence of the guardians of vernacular education. They must fully believe in its rhetoric that “multiculturalism is an added advantage and a strength for this country”, and take concrete steps to demonstrate its sincerity to the people.

To a large extent, the Chinese and Tamil educationists cannot be blamed for their fear of marginalisation. The government's disbursement of RM1.4 million to 248 Chinese primary schools, or a meagre RM6,000 per school as hyped by Deputy Education Minister Datuk Hon Choon Kim in the vernacular press, pales in comparison to the RM709 million allocated to building 15 new Mara Junior Science Colleges (MRSMs), and more for upgrades and repairs of existing MRSMs.

In addition, despite the consistent claim by the government that it will build more vernacular schools in accordance to the needs of the people, the number of Chinese primary schools have declined from 1,333 in 1957 to 1,288 today while enrolment has more than doubled from 310,000 to 636,000. At the same time, the number of Tamil primary schools has been reduced from 526 in 2001 to 523 in 2006 despite a 12.7% increase in enrolment from 88,810 in 2001 to 100,142 in 2006.

Vernacular school educationists are also, understandably, unconvinced by the “national unity” argument because the government has taken steps to build and expand MRSM secondary schools which are almost exclusive domains of ethnic Malays. Pre-university matriculation colleges which limit the intake of non-bumiputeras to 10% are also set up as an alternative to national two-year STPM programmes.

At the same time, it is important for vernacular schools to play up its Malaysian character to improve its perception amongst government officials and Malaysians in general. Instead of taking an overly defensive stance of protecting “mother tongue education”, it should perhaps focus greater on its nation building contributions and Malaysian character.

For instance, it should share its expertise in helping national schools get their stuttering mother tongue language programmes off the ground. This is an education policy which has been delayed by some two years already. By introducing such programmes in national schools, it will ensure that students will be able to preserve their cultural identity in multi-cultural environment. Strengthening national schools should hence not be seen as a threat to the survival of vernacular schools, but instead be treated as complementary to the very cause pursued by the latter.

Overall, the Chinese vernacular schools have for example, provided consistently high teaching and academic standards which has led to better educated Malaysians. It is for this reason, that many parents of all ethnic groups are increasingly attracted to these schools despite their typically overcrowded and under-equipped nature. Recently, at a Malay wedding, I was surprised to find out from a Malay parent who sends her daughter to a Chinese primary school in Ampang that the school had approximately 20% non-Chinese students in its most recent intake. Surely, there can be no better endorsement of vernacular education than its multi-racial character, which contributes immensely to our nation building process.

The emphasis of mother-tongue education in vernacular schools should not colour our judgement of their national unity contributions. Instead, its contribution to society should be judged by the quality of students, their patriotism to the country and in turn, their future contributions back to Malaysian society.

Hence, it is critical for the government to have faith in its own rhetoric, that not only does vernacular education contribute to the richness of the Malaysian education system, it weaves the very fabric of our diverse multi-cultural identity. The government must take the first step to win back the trust of the vernacular education community by giving priority to their development via coherent and well-funded programmes, instead of handing out piecemeal breadcrumbs. As a matter of fact, continued neglect of the vernacular education system may ironically sow the seeds of national disunity, the very outcome which our government has been seeking to avoid.

National Education Blueprint - Hiccups Already?

Ok, this is one time I can't find the reference back to the article which I read in the local papers a few weeks back. So, I'm going to blog it off my memory (if someone finds the relevant article(s), please let me know).

One of the key programmes to make National Schools an attractive choice for all Malaysians, particularly the non-Malay community, is the option of taking Chinese or Tamil language classes. This is clearly stated as a key objective in the recently launched National Education Blueprint for 2006-2010. In the Chapter 6 of the blueprint entitled "Strengthening National Schools", it was a key performance indicator that 150 national schools will offer Chinese Language as a subject, while 100 will offer Tamil Language programmes beginning 2007.

However, as reported in the local press, these targets are far from being met. Apparently, the Ministry of Education is still facing various problems in its implementation, including sourcing for the necessary teachers, preparation of syllabus etc.

This isn't the first time that the Ministry has announced a delay as well. The policy to offer the mother tongue languages in national schools did not originate in the blueprint, but much earlier in April 2005. Then, it was announced that the programme will actually commenced for all national schools on January 2006. However, as blogged here, the Ministry subsequently announced a postponement of the programme to a later date.

Now, despite the recently published Blueprint with a more modest objective of 150 schools, the Ministry of Education under the leadership of Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein has failed to deliver again.

The plan to change the teaching of Mathematics and Science subjects to the English language was executed (albeit with plenty of teething issues) within a period of 6 months. Now after more than 20 months from the date of the official announcement, Chinese and Tamil language programmes are still cooking in the oven.

This raises several questions with regards to the Ministry of Education:

1. Is the Ministry even serious about offering these subjects to attract more non-Malay students to national schools, making them the schools of choice for all Malaysians? The continuous delay does not give confidence to Malaysian parents that the Ministry is keen on such an outcome for it has shown little or no urgency.
   
   
2. And if the Ministry is indeed serious about it, then surely, there needs to be a major revamp of the ministry leadership for they have then demonstrated absolute incompetence in executing their tasks and responsibilities.
   
   
3. What then is the likelihood of success for the National Education Blueprint, if the Ministry officials cannot even get one of the key quantitative task done properly, when there are many more difficult qualitative goals to achieve? Some other problems was blogged here earlier. Other immediate key performance indicators for 2007 includes ensuring no one is left out of the education system (see Kian Ming's post on Primary School Enrollment), increasing the number of teaching assistants, extending the pre-school education system, strengthening the selection criteria as well implementing the "fasttrack" programme for headmasters and senior assistants.

As highlighted in a few earlier posts - the Politics of Reform and Initial Impressions, the critical success factor to the Blueprint, whatever its contents, will be in the implementation plan and delivery system. Without reforming the delivery system, putting in place proper "change management" programmes, no blueprint or reform agenda will ever be successful.
I've yet to see such a plan being put in place.