The Malaysian education system has been criticised by many people. Whenever a new education minister comes into power, there are changes made to the system. Why is that so? Does he/she want to leave a mark in history? Or because the system is so bad, that if he/she does not do anything, people will say he/she is not doing his/her job and by changing it(although negative) changes people’s perception?
Well, let’s not dwell into the politicians’ agendas. Our education has a lot of flaws and there is no doubt about that – but we can’t wash our hands and let the future generation go through something that we think is flawed. Things have to change and people have to be more accepting – but change does not come easy.
The focus of this article is about the racial integration aspect of our education system. From a personal experience, I believe I was well integrated in my school (a daily public girls’ school), where I knew all my classmates, most of my batch-mates and some of my schoolmates, without even considering their racial background. Personally, I did not feel any discrimination in school, let it be in terms of academics or any other activities – opportunities were based on merit and talent. Although people say that the bumiputeras are given priority in many aspects, I did not experience it myself and hence had an idealistic view that things are just going to be like it was in school. The only segregation experienced was during our split for Moral and Agama lessons – which I thought was a bit unfair as Moral Education was harder to score in – until we had a good teacher from a different school telling us tips and tricks to score in this subject during SPM.
Having left school, I was blessed with the opportunity to meet remarkable people during my A levels where racial tension did not exist and people were open minded about many things. Here, I had the experience of living in a residential school setting, but with a British twist in preparation to study in the UK. However, the allocation of scholarships and university courses did resemble some form of unfairness if you look at it from a merit point of view. I have few friends who had to do Form Six in order to get into university. However, as we all know, Form Six is super hard and it was unlikely that they were placed in courses that they enjoy; leading some to fork out money and go private. All these can be seen as unfairness in the system.
However, coming back to my point about racial integration, I realise that the way we are educated in school plays a vital role. Due to that, we can easily mix with people here (in the UK) and blend in, not forgetting our culture and values. However, it is different for certain ethnic community in the UK (first immigrant generation and their children always stick together). I draw this conclusion based on the Sri Lankan community in the UK – they always stick together and adhere to family/racial values although residing in the UK. But we Malaysians easily mix with everyone (especially those who reciprocate the easiness to blend together) – and I give credit to the national schools in Malaysia (at least until the year 2000).
I just hope the political turmoil in Malaysia would subside and we all can see a silver lining. There is just too much drama now, so much that essential aspects of the economy and country are easily lost sight of.
