The position of the education minister has historically been especially important in Malaysian politics. Each and every successor to the first prime minister, the Tunku, had been an education minister on the way to being the prime minister. The only exception was Ismail Sabri, who was also the only prime minister who was never a deputy prime minister or an education minister and could be considered more of an accidental prime minister than one who was groomed for the job. If anything, up until the 80s, the education ministry was expressly understood to the stepping stone to being prime minister. And this was no surprise considering that control of the education ministry is critical to building any nation, a process still ongoing today in Malaysia.
Laissez faire education
Before the Second World War, the British colonial authorities never give much thought to a unitary nation-wide education system. One must remember that their business model was to control as much economic resources as possible at lowest possible cost. And education is a cost like any other. As a result, the education system in pre-war Malaya pretty much developed haphazardly, there being four education systems which developed pretty much independently of each other.
English-language schools
The first English-language in the whole of South East Asia was the Penang Free School set up in 1819 and as its name implies, was intended to provide free education to the poor. The majority of its students were Asians who were taught in their mother tongues while families were free to choose to have their children taught in English. The first girls school was set up the following year on the same premises.
These schools of course also catered to the emerging British community in the Straits Settlements, at least those children who were not sent to boarding schools in Britain or India. Children of Indian civil servants in Malaya would also be sent to English-language schools as most of them are not Tamil
There is a separate school system of English-language schools set up by churches in Malaya, which we call missionary schools. Most of them were Catholic but they were also Anglican, Methodist and Seventh-Day Adventist schools as well. The schools were not exclusive to the respective religious denominations but were open to other communities. The Catholic and the Methodist churches also set up Chinese-language schools in Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur.
The ethos of missionary schools was to bring education to the poor but their success quickly attracted children of the emerging middle class in Malaya. As a result, in most towns in Malaya, there would be a leading Catholic school in rivalry with a leading English-language school run by the colonial administration and later the independent Malayan/Malaysian government – think Victoria Institution vs St John's in Kuala Lumpur and Free School vs St Xavier’s in Penang.
Today, many of these English-language schools remain but the rivalry has somewhat eroded with the addition of many new national schools and also because some of these schools were enticed to move from their valuable land in the city centre to more modern and spacious facilities further from town built by corporates seeking prime land.
Chinese-language schools
The Chinese education system in Malaya developed when women started following the men into migration to Southeast Asia in search for work or to follow husbands. Where there are women in any migrant society, there are families and with them comes a settlement which needs to be sustained. The first Chinese school in Malaya was set up in Penang in 1819 and slowly spread to towns in Perak, Selangor and eventually to Singapore in 1854. (That first Chinese school in Penang was School of Fifth Happiness, apparently in Chulia Street, but I am unable to track it down and would appreciate if anyone has any further information on it)
The Chinese school system was largely funded by the Chinese community themselves and as such was free to teach whichever curriculum the community chooses. In many communities, funding was largely borne by business. Some of the smaller towns were built by a single employer to house their employees and industry. Larger towns were normally dominated by a trade association or a clan house. As funders normally have the right to dictate how their funds are spent, local business communities and clan houses had a high degree of influence over the curriculum. So, while education was largely based on what the Chinese were familiar with back in the mother country, the actual curriculum was often structured around the needs of employers and shaped by the culture of the local dominant clans or dialect groups.
Chinese schools - Reforms and regulations
In the early 20th century, reform of the Chinese education system were introduced in Malaya in line with the reforms by the Ching Dynasty back in China. A more structured and standardised curriculum started to emerge based on the relevant elements of the Chinese education system and around Mandarin, the predominant dialect of Chinese government affairs. This provided some level of standardised training, teaching methods and curriculum based on a common cultural identity. This curriculum though was based on the curriculum in China and had little to do with Malaya. At this point, there is little inter-racial interactions, especially outside the Straits Settlements and thus, the identification of the Chinese community was still with China. As a result, when my parents went to school before the war, they studied Chinese history and Chinese geography, not Malayan history and Malayan geography.
The Revolution in China of 1911, which replaced the dynasty with a republican government, led the British authorities to put the Chinese community in Malaya, which largely supported Sun Yat-sen, on close watch. It was reported that in 1911, 54 Chinese schools in Malaya were under the influence of the Kuomintang in China, whose ideology in Malaya were pretty much anti-colonialist and specifically anti-British (think the Opium War). The colonial authorities responded with the Schools Registration Enactment in 1920, which was aimed at regulating Chinese schools for the first time.
A Deputy Director of Education was appointed in the Straits Settlements in 1924 with the express authority to regulate safety and hygiene in all schools but with also the underlying intention of curbing rising Chinese nationalism in schools through curriculum guidelines. Funds were provided for the upgrade of the more poorly funded schools. The remit of the Deputy Director was extended to the Federated Malay States in 1931. By the eve of the war, Chinese schools were pretty much autonomous still with no restrictions on opening of new schools but with the understanding that there are parameters beyond which the colonial authorities reserved the right to intervene.
Malay-language schools
Before the coming of the British, the Malays already had a simple education system centred around the sekolah pondok (literally, hut schools), which were essentially madrasah that teach reading, writing, religion and basic mathematics. It is pretty much what a religious-centric agricultural culture needs to prepare their children for religious knowledge and some trading while most of the kids will grow up to till the land. It is interesting that the Malay word, sekolah comes from the Portuguese word schola, both of which means school.
A more formal schooling system for Malays was introduced under the British with the first modern Malay language school opened in Bayan Lepas, Penang in 1855 and two more followed two years later in Singapore. These schools were for boys only and the first Malay schools for girls was set up a generation later in Singapore in 1884. These schools were founded by the local Malay community rather than established by the British and focussed on religious education although other subjects were offered. By 1900, there were 171 Malay schools in the Federated Malay States including 12 for girls. Malay education under the British accelerated after the language was romanised in 1903.
In 1905, the colonial administration set up the Malay Residential School as “a special residential school for the education of Malays of good family and for the training of Malay boys for admission to certain branches of Government service". While English was the medium of instructions, it did offer the Malay language, Malay customs and Islam as subjects for young Malay boys.
Essentially, it was to make Englishmen out of the sons of Malay aristocrats, although some commoner children were also enrolled. The British never intended it to prepare Malay boys for entrance to higher education or to the commercial world, which is why most of the pre-independent alumni ended up as civil servants. In 1909, the name was changed to the one it is known by today, Malay College Kuala Kangsar and counted seven Kings and three Prime Ministers of Malaysia among its alumni alongside numerous state rulers, governors and state & federal ministers.
The government also made a leap in support with the establishment of the Sultan Idris Training College (‘SITC’) in Tanjung Malim in 1922, now Sultan Idris Education University (Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris in Malay or UPSI, to train Malay language teachers for Malay schools. SITC was until then based in Taiping set up under another name in 1913 by the local Malay chieftain. SITC became the hotbed of left-wing and independence ideology and some of its alumni, including Ibrahim Yaakob, went on to form the Kesatuan Melayu Muda or the Young Malays Association, the pre-cursor of the first Malay political party to campaign for Malayan independence.
Tamil language schools
The Indian education system, or to be more accurate the Tamil-language primary school system in Malaya was built by the planters, often with the involvement of Christian missionaries. Planters were the employers in the plantation and their needs do not go far beyond training a small core of supervisors to assist in running the plantation. Unlike the Chinese education system which was funded by the community that it serves, the Tamils in the plantations had little say in the quality and the structure of the education that was provided. This was very much decided by the planters who paid for it and as such the Tamil school system was rather simple and of low quality; anything more would have cut into the profits of the plantation.
The Schools Registration Enactment helped Tamil language schools with funding, especially with school infrastructure, particularly sanitary. With the end of bonded labour a few years earlier, Tamil language schools became the route for enterprising estate children to escape the squalor of estate life by using it as a springboard to English language secondary schools and a life in the modern world outside the estates. Labour code made it mandatory for plantations to establish Tamil schools in 1923 but facilities remain poor with the teaching establishment being basically the more literate staff on the estate. There was much reliance on Christian missionaries to provide Tamil schools in the estate.
Reforms
In 1948 following the establishment of a unitary country with the formation of the Federation of Malaya, the British colonial authorities took the opportunity to unify the disparate education systems of the various states. This involves aligning all government and vernacular school systems into a single consistent school system that can be efficiently administered and capable of building the single country which until then did not exist.
Barnes Report
A committee was set up under Maxwell Holgate to study a consolidated school system for the new country, but crucially did not include any representation from the Chinese community. The committee presented its deliberations to the Legislative Council in 1950 and the final report, officially the Report of the Committee on Malay Education and was published the following year. It was better known as the Barnes report, after the Oxford professor who authored it. It proposed a single school system with either English and Malay as the medium of instructions. It was premised on the expectation that over time, the natural course of nation building with a single school system would obviate the demand for vernacular schools. A cursory glance at the official title of the Barnes Report would indicate that its proposal to abolish vernacular schools may arguably be beyond its remit.
The Barnes Report, was incorporated into the Education Enactment 1952 but with modifications to pacify communal concerns. Bilingualism was allowed in English & Malay schools and trilingualism in Chinese and Tamil schools. Communal opposition to the conversion of vernacular schools into English-language or Malay language schools effectively meant that reforms based on the Barnes Report, like the Malayan Union before it, was inaugurated but could not be effectively implemented while a compromise was negotiated.
In addition to communal opposition, there was also the practical problems of having neither enough teachers trained in English or Malay nor the budget to expand the medium of instructions to all vernacular schools. Still, the Barnes Report proposal was landmark because it introduced the idea of free primary education to all citizens in Malaya.
Like Malayan Union, the Barnes Report was that neat bureaucrat’s desk-top exercise that did not consider real world communal sensitivities. It was no surprise therefore that the proposal, while logical and sensible, did not satisfy the Chinese and Tamil communities which it did not consult, even if it was accepted by the Malay community, which it did consult. The Barnes Report essentially meant that the Chinese and Tamil communities have to subsume their respective education school on which their cultural identity were built, into a national identity, over which they did not yet had any political control or influence. Today, it is hard to find the Barnes report online while the Fenn-Wu Report was quoted extensively and some of the observations of the latter remain relevant today.
Fenn-Wu report
Resulting from the Chinese opposition against the Barnes report, the All-Malaya Association of Chinese School Teachers, the forerunner of United Chinese School Teachers’ Association of Malaysia (Jiao Zong in Chinese) and later, the United Chinese Schools Committee of Malaya (Dong Zong in Chinese) was set up, both working very closely together to this day.
Pressure from the Chinese community led to the colonial administration commissioning another report by inviting Willian Fenn, an American educationalist with extensive experience in China and Dr Wu Teh Yao, a Penang-born United Nations official, to prepare a report on the Chinese education system in Malaya. The pair spent two months in Malaya in 1951 with a remit to make proposals, limited only to the Chinese education system in Malaya.
The Fenn-Wu report included a few astute observations, among others:
1. It noted the weakness of the colonial policy in allowing the Chinese community to set up the schools on their own with little financial or infrastructure support from the colonial administration.
2. It criticised the Chinese schools' focus on providing education based on China, with little teaching of the Malayan situation.
3. It reported that the Chinese community resisted Malayanisation on the basis that it was making aimed at making them more Malay. It noted that historically, a Malayan tradition never existed and that the Malayan identify really comprised the four traditions of the British, Malays, Chinese and Indians.
4. It also made a prediction that any attempt to dismantle the Chinese education system in Malaya will only lead the Chinese community to redouble its efforts to protect it.
The report also noted the attitudes of the Chinese community to the three languages involved:
· The Malay language was accepted as the national language and its place in the curriculum was necessary, in part because it was a requisite for Malayan citizenship; it was key to enhancing the sorely needed interracial relationships in Malaya; and it open the door to regional trade using Malay as the lingua franca of insular South East Asia.
· English was the language of business in Malaya and its need was also acknowledged as it was the language it was a global language and also the language of science and technology required for a modern society. English was already widely used as the language of commerce in Malaya. Interestingly, my parents’ generation would refer to anyone who is not educated in English as illiterate even if they had a Chinese school education.
· The Chinese language, as the cultural language, however was also seen as a bedrock of the Chinese culture & identity in Malaya and the report noted the desire of the Chinese community to ensure that the Chinese identity remains a component of the Malayan identity to be built.
Following from these observations, the report proposed:
1. Provision for primary level education in the vernacular for six years, with the introduction of English language as a subject in the third year and the introduction of Malay language as a subject another two years later
2. Secondary school can be in the vernacular with any two of the three languages
3. The curriculum was to be updated within a space of two years to modern teaching methods. It was also to be based on the Malaya rather than China, while incorporating elements about the Chinese culture.
4. The issue of insufficient trained resources can be met by the importation of teaching experts from China to run revision courses for teachers to be attended by selected teachers and administrators from each school, who will then return to their schools to train teachers and administrators there.
5. In the long run, it was recommended that the government set up more teacher training colleges for all races as this was a problem that cut across all races.
The Fenn-Wu Report on Chinese Education was tabled to the Legislative Council in July 1951. What I found interesting about it was the way it placed the cultural aspects of national identity forefront in a report on education policy. While this would have been true anywhere in the world, it was somewhat more pertinent in Malaya where a national identify has not yet been forged and the debate over education mirrors the debate on what the nation should be.
In September 1951, the Central Advisory Committee on Education, which included representatives of all four school systems and missionary schools was prepared after three meetings in just two months – the government seems to work so much speedier in those days. It effectively rejected the main premise of the Fenn-Wu report by expressly declaring: ‘The last racially-segregated vernacular primary school in Malaya will cease to exist when the parents of the children attending it accepts that a national school will provide more acceptable education. The Fenn-Wu Report suggests that the day will never come. We believe it will.’ (par 21) Today, some three generations after the report was published, that day doesn’t seem any nearer.
Razak Report
Following the Alliance victory in the 1955 general elections, Abdul Razak (now, Tun) was appointed the education minister in the first pre-independence cabinet of Malaya. His first priority was, naturally, reforming the education system and his report was presented the following year, incorporating elements from both the Barnes and the Fenn-Wu Reports.
While at primary level the vernacular school system was allowed to continue to operate alongside English and Malay medium schools, a singular secondary school system with English or Malay as the medium of instruction was established. Students from vernacular schools will need to go through an additional year at the conclusion of the primary schooling to prepare them for the English or Malay medium of instruction in the secondary schools. Malay medium schools were to be known as national schools while primary schools in other medium will be known as national-type schools. This is essentially the same system that we still retain in Malaysia with modifications.
Development since independence
There are of course many developments in the Malayan education system after independence and the system continues to evolve to this day to cater to the needs of a dynamically changing world. In this article as in the whole series, I will only touch on developments that have a significant impact on inter-communal relations in Malaysia today.
Medium of instructions
Following the dropping of English as an official language in Malaysia in 1967, all English medium schools adopted Malay as the medium of instructions for primary one in 1970. I was in that year and as a result benefited from a bilingual education, being taught officially in Malay for the purposes of the examinations and also in English by those teachers who were trained to teach in English and did not have good enough Malay. Even those who had good Malay would give their explanations and ran the class in English. I had only one teacher who taught exclusively in Malay and he was Chinese. Having such a bilingual education, studying from textbooks in two languages, enriched me as a person and prepared me to play a full role as a citizen of Malaysia and of the global world.
In 1973, English medium schools in Sarawak converted to using Malay language as the medium of instructions even though Sarawak never enacted any legislation to drop English as an official language. Education however is a federal matter in the constitution and Federal policies therefore take priority over particular situations in any state. The teaching of English however continued to be emphasised in Sarawak more than any other state of Malaysia and the language is still used extensively in the state government there.
For Malaysians generally, English remains the language of commerce. It is the language used for corporate meetings, minutes of meetings and procedure manuals in banks Banks and lunch and some medium size companies. In some cities like mine, Petaling Jaya, English is very much the default language in many shops and most mid and high end restaurants in Malaysia publish their menus in English.
It is an interesting situation that the central bank would have their meetings in English but their minutes in Malay to comply with its status as the national language. The ruling elite and the middle class & professionals are all at least bilingual and learning English remains as key to a stepping stone to a comfortable future.
Chinese school systems
Now, let’s muddy the waters further. Vernacular and missionary secondary schools were required to covert to using English or Malay as the medium of instructions under the Barnes and Razak Report. All Malay, Tamil and missionary did and qualified for at least partial government funding. Most of the Chinese and missionary schools handed over curriculum control and teaching faculties to the government, who then paid for the operating costs of running the school. The properties however were not handed over in many cases and remained the ownership of the school, which had to fund expansion and any capital infrastructure spending through donations and other fund-raising.
Not all of them did however. Some 14 Chinese secondary schools refused and eventually, the government allowed them to continue operating as private education institutions. They are known as independent Chinese high schools. The Chinese community continued to fund these schools and indeed, in many cases expanded their numbers. Some Chinese secondary schools that converted to be national-type schools re-established their independent high school branches while new independent schools or new campuses of existing schools were established.
Today, there are 60+2+1 independent Chinese high schools in Malaysia: the “+2+1” are there because of the vagaries in defining what is an independent Chinese high school, as opposed to 83 Chinese secondary schools (and 1350 primary schools) in Malaya in 1957. These schools teach some 80-90,000 secondary-level students today and are largely funded by fees and donations. Fees are generally lower than other private schools at RM60-300 a month, but these are often supplemented by additional charges, including for extra-curricular activities. Some of them do get annual or one-off grants from several of the state governments.
In 1973, the Unified Examination Certificate (‘UEC’) was established to standardise the school-leaving qualifications from these independent Chinese high schools. While the UEC was recognised as a qualification for entrance into tertiary education institutions throughout the world, including US, UK and several other Commonwealth countries, it is ironically not recognised by the Malaysian government for government jobs and entrance to public universities. As the Malaysian government require credits in Malay and History as compulsory subjects for a Malaysian high school certificate, negotiations are still ongoing as of early 2024 over the concerns over what is perceived as the Malay and Islam-centric syllabus of the Malaysian History curriculum.
Chinese schools in Malaysia today, whether national-type primary schools or independent Chinese high schools, are seen as providing providing quality education at affordable costs. As a result, non-Chinese enrolment in national-type Chinese schools have been growing, to about 15% nationally and double that in Sabah & Sarawak, where inter-racial dynamics are very different. As a result of the government not allowing any more new national-type primary schools, the 1,280 schools are bursting at the seams with this increased demand.
Chinese and Indian enrolment in national schools, however, are dropping and as a result we have segregated education in Malaysia – by choice, not by law. Ironically, Chinese schools tend of be less segregated than national schools and the government is increasingly offering Chinese and Tamil language as elective subjects in national schools to entice non-Malays into national schools. It has so far seen to be ineffective as long as national schools are perceived to be not up to the mark in providing higher quality education for commerce or the more professional & technical subjects.
Private and international schools
The emergence of a middle class with aspirations to joining global prosperity led many families who can afford it into private schools. Private schools are essentially English speaking even if they adhere to a Malay language curriculum. It is here that children are inculcated with middle-class ethos, forming their world-view with regards to social norms, economic expectations and political affiliations. As I have always described Malaysia as a country of four races not three, private schools have become one of the factors producing a middle-class English-speaking outlook in Malaysia's fourth race, with all its attendant multiracialism and similar socio-political norms.
Many middle-class families turn to private schools in search of higher quality education that national schools were not perceived as being able to provide. At the same time, the more reputable educational institutions in Malaysia felt constrained within Malaysian education policies which were largely designed for mass education especially in the villages, to bring social mobility to entire economic classes of people. It is not surprising that many missionary schools, successful in providing quality education in cities, joined Chinese high schools in setting up private branches, bringing these institutions into a full circle to being outside governmental control.
The 2010s also saw a large expansion of international schools, which were initially intended to cater exclusively to the expatriate community. The government began to allow Malaysian children to be educated in international schools but with a cap of Malaysians forming 30% of their enrolment. This was later removed altogether and there are now international schools that caters exclusively to Malaysians at the very affordable rate of RM2,000 a month, well, affordable to middle class families at least. This not only entrench the children into the middle class of Malaysia but also the global economy, deepening and accelerating the changes in the worldview of a growing fourth race of the country.
Islamic religious schools
Islamisation and Arabisation of a growing segment of Malay population saw a rise in religious schools. While a number of these are small and underregulated, as they were deemed as falling within the purview of the religious department rather than the education ministry, there were quite a few that also provide affordable high-quality education to the Malay community. While adhering to the Malaysian curriculum, there is a greater emphasis on Islamic studies and the Arab language. They in turn, influenced the curriculum and textbooks in national schools.
The most common type of Islamic schools in Malaysia are the Sekolah Agama Rakyat (People’s Religious Schools in Malay), usually managed by the respective state religious authorities, religion being a state matter under the Malaysian constitution. While the education ministry of the federal government do issue guidelines for the curriculum and administration of all religious schools, inspection and regulation by the education ministry can be challenging at times. It should be noted that state religious authorities often report directly to the state’s ruler, blurring any accountability they have to the democratically-elected state government, even if their budget comes from the state government. Again, this brings them back in a full circle to the sekolah pondok, which was outside the regulations of government authorities before the war.
From there some students prepared for Islamic higher education abroad with the Al-Azhar University in Cairo as aspirational goal of many Muslim families. This allows them to participate in a global community outside of the country via the more narrow Muslim world rather than the broader globalised economy though. For many conservative Muslim families, fulfilment of their Islamic values takes priority over economic prosperity.
However, not all products of the Islamic religious schools are conservative in nature and there are many Islamic educational institutions who are producing professionals required in a modern economy. The International Islamic University provides quality tertiary education to Muslim, non-Muslim as well as international students using English as the medium of instruction. Indeed, the IIUM counts non-Muslim parliamentarians from Malaysia and Singapore among its alumni, one of whom became a non-Muslim deputy minister in 2023.
Conclusion
I have often been asked whether vernacular schools have a place in modern Malaysian society. My reply is that the Chinese community do not feel their culture is acknowledged as part of the Malaysian identity. Until that is resolved one way or another, either the Chinese community’s aspirations are achieved or they agree to adopt the Malay identity, Chinese vernacular schools will remain.
As such, and the existence of vernacular schools on one extreme and Islamic religious schools at the other extreme is a sure sign that Malaysian nation building is not just a work in progress, but a project where objectives have not even been agreed upon. The development of the Malaysian education system is indeed a reflection of our progress towards building the nation that we inhabit together.
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