Vernacular Schools, Boon or Bane?

Of all countries in the South East Asian region, Malaysia is a distinctive case where there are 3 different streams of schools in its education set-up, catering to the respective major races. Naturally, this phenomenon doesn’t sit well amongst some people with misplaced feelings of nationalism who see this uniqueness to be a great impediment to solid nation-building but as a dispassionate observer, I strongly disagree on their premise.

A case in point, I am a product of national school where medium of instruction is in the majority language, Bahasa Malaysia. No doubt, I had an early head-start in socialising with students of various races and we became good friends, thus giving me a better understanding of fellow Malaysians. Looking back, I enjoyed my schooling years very much.

During that time, I was a discriminatory child for I grew up showing contempt to the Chinese educated students due to their overall weaker command of English and Bahasa Malaysia. On top of that, I was under the mistaken belief that they had a less than worldly view of things. Only after leaving school, did I realize my puerile thought had no basis because in reality, these students are made of sterner stuff particularly in areas of resilience, discipline, humility and most of all, character. Additionally, their arithmetic skills have been acknowledged to be far superior to their national schools’ counterparts.

Back to those who oppose the presence of vernacular schools on the pretext of it being a stumbling block to greater national unity. Either these critics are genuinely ignorant or choose to conveniently ignore the bigger issues affecting national cohesiveness. While in school, I wrote countless of essays espousing the greatness of our country where people respect each other and we live in perfect harmony. I admit I was very patriotic; not that I’m any less, nowadays. However, I received the first dose of reality tinged with shock and bitterness upon discovery that the intake of students into local higher institutions of learning is not based on absolute meritocracy. Students who performed less admirably were readily admitted into universities at the expense of their peers who scored better by the virtue of the race they were born as. Not only that, MARA institutes of learning are virtually filled by students of a particular race. And to think of it, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Therefore to say with the abolishment of vernacular schools, greater national unity can be achieved is just a misleading notion. Eventually people will still feel aggrieved when they leave school, so long the root causes are not fixed.

I believe vernacular schools are needed by Malaysia more than ever, now that China and India are on the rise. Malaysians need to be at least conversant in either Mandarin or Tamil to engage with the citizens of these 2 rising giants because we will reach a point in time when these two nations will present us with business opportunities. One may argue that Hindi is spoken more widely in India but who is to say with certainty that when India advances as a whole, its Tamil Nadu state will not progress accordingly? With our sizeable communities of Malaysians with Chinese and Indian descents and the vernacular schools they are educated in, we will have the edge over our other Asian neighbours when China and India finally make their mark at world stage. Therefore, it makes economic sense to maintain vernacular schools in Malaysia. As it is, the younger generation of Vietnamese and Thais can converse in Mandarin. Given the high stakes, surely we don’t want to be left behind.

Let’s be reminded that we are now paying for our past mistake in relegating the importance of English language when in the past, our earlier generations possessed better command of the language, thanks to English medium schools, which have now been confined to the history books. I doff my hat to the Malay and Indian parents who have the foresight to send their children to vernacular schools. They are doing a great service to their children and I am embarrassed no end whenever young Malay children speak flawless Mandarin to me and I am unable to reply! Being multilingual has many benefits and numerous studies done have confirmed this. I don’t believe at all that by being educated in vernacular schools, they will turn out to be less Malay. In fact, more and more Malays are sending their children to vernacular schools.

To further allay our fears, compared to the Pre-Independence years, our vernacular schools have ceased to adopt the syllabuses of the countries of origin. Instead, what we have now is a uniform syllabus with emphasis on nation-building. The only difference lies in the medium of instruction.

For the sake of pragmatism, let us not cast a bad light on vernacular schools anymore.