The existence of vernacular schools has remained a contentious issue in the country. Some Malaysians opine that vernacular schools are a stumbling block to achieve national unity while others argue that national unity can be achieved via other means without needing to infringe on the freedom of the minority groups to send their kids to vernacular schools as had been done for many decades.
Vernacular schools refer to schools that use either Chinese or Tamil language as the primary medium of instruction. In total there are 1,298 Chinese vernacular schools and 524 Tamil vernacular schools at the primary education level, some are government-owned but most are government-aided using public funds. Vernacular schools make up 23% of the total amount of primary schools in Malaysia.
To those who are unfamiliar with the topic, the history of vernacular schools in the country had begun before independence during the British colonial period. The British’s divide and rule policy necessitate each racial group in the country to create their own educational system. The Malays had their schooling system as do the Chinese and the Indians at the time. The first calls for the abolishment of these vernacular schools came from the British with the Barnes Report in 1951. It proposed for the existing vernacular schools at the time to be replaced with a national school system that uses a combination of English and Malay as the medium of instruction.
This drew mass criticisms from the Chinese community that eventually led to the formation of the Dong Jiao Zong, an organization that can be regarded as the main defender of the vernacular school system until today. They proposed an alternative education system to the one outlined in the Barnes Report that is titled the Fenn-Wu Report, it proposed for the Malay language to be the principal language in the education system but with provisions for the Chinese and Tamil language. As both the Barnes Report and the Fenn-Wu report did not manage to achieve national acceptance, it led to a compromise in the form of The Razak Report in 1956, named after the then Education Minister Tun Abdul Razak. The report has since served as the educational framework for Malaysia, it provides that all schools in the country adopt a common standardized syllabus. Malay-medium schools are referred to as national schools while other schools are referred to as national-type schools, what we commonly refer to now as vernacular schools.
Albeit there is some rationale to abolish vernacular schools in the country in the effort to achieve stronger national unity, one can’t help but argue that perhaps maintaining the current education system is the best means to achieve that aim. The reason for this is rooted in history, as the many attempts to abolish the vernacular school from the period of the Barnes Report until today have consistently continued to attract vehement opposition from the Chinese and the Indian communities in the country. As influential organizations such as Dong Jiao Zong are unlikely to make concessions that will result in the abolishment of the institution that they were created to protect, this makes conflict inevitable if there are attempts to do so. Thus it is far more likely that the abolishment of vernacular schools may create more problems to unity than it can hope to solve.
One could also argue that since the country promotes the concept of national integration instead of assimilation, Malaysia should remain tolerant to the diversity of languages used as the medium of instruction, as in the case of the vernacular schools. Our integration policy differs greatly from countries like Indonesia that promotes assimilation, in which the minority group is forced to abandon their culture in replacement with the culture of the dominant group in the country. The Federal Constitution of Malaysia has provisions guaranteeing the rights and the freedom of every citizen in the country to teach and learn their native language. As such, there is no need to revisit or implement new policies that may be deemed by some to infringe on those rights.
Another point worth mentioning is the fact that parents should be allowed to decide what school their children go to. If they believe that sending their children to vernacular schools can secure a better future for their kids then they should be allowed to make that choice. It is worth mentioning that there are also many concerns by the Chinese and Indians in the country on how their children would be treated in the national school system. Controversies of alleged unequal treatment such as the instance whereby non-muslim students were forced to have their lunch in a change room while their Muslim classmates fasted during Ramadan perpetuate the fear amongst non-Malay parents that their children will not be treated fairly in the national school system.
Lastly, if the ultimate objective is to achieve national unity then surely the country can explore other alternative policies that can achieve that aim without needing to abolish vernacular schools. Our neighbor Singapore for instance has introduced many policies to achieve greater integration in the country such as the racial quotas implemented for the sale of public housing and the setting up of the presidential council for minority rights and religious harmony. More recently the country has also announced plans to introduce the Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act, which will introduce new sanctions to try and shape social behavior and norms to tackle the issue of racism. It is a much softer approach to managing racial harmony compared to the conventional punitive approach taken in most countries.
It is high time for Malaysia to follow in the footsteps of its neighbors such as Singapore by taking a more proactive approach in the handling of its multiracial citizens. The issue of racial discord can no longer be swept under the rug and must be confronted and addressed heads on if the nation is to have any hope in developing a matured and developed nation that is competitive with the rest of the world in the years to come. Albeit abolishing vernacular school may be regarded by some as a step forward towards the right direction, doing so may achieve more harm than good once we’ve considered all factors involved.