Letter to Minister of Education dated 28.5.2013

Letter to the Minister of Education, posted on the website of the Ministry when it asked for feedback on the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025. I have received no feedback from the Ministry.

Dear Sir,

I read with concern the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 wherein it was concluded that the vernacular schools are the cause for polarisation among Malaysian students.

The cause of the racial polarisation in Malaysia is not the vernacular schools but unfair treatment of the students and unjust policies of the government. Let me share my experience.

When I was growing up in Kuala Kangsar, Perak, I studied in a Chinese primary school. There were very few Malay or Indian students in our school. During this period, we were taught that we are citizens of Malaysia and we have to love Malaysia. We were not aware of the differences between us and other Malaysians. We were inculcated values, I believe, the same as the students in the national schools.

My father had Malay and Indian friends and we would visit them during Hari Raya or Deepavali and they would visit us during Chinese New Year. Then, our Malay friends were not so concerned whether the food we prepared was halal or otherwise.

Unfair treatment

When I went into secondary school, I studied in a national type school. Except for one subject in Chinese and one in English, the rest were all in Malay. When I grew older, I began to learn that there were differences between Bumiputra and Non-Bumiputra students:

1. We had to study harder because of quota system. The doors of ivory tower were narrower for us. For Chinese students, we have to get better results than the Malay students in order to get enrolled into national universities. We could not afford an overseas education, therefore the national universities were the only hope we have to get tertiary education.

1. The national schools were given more resources and therefore could afford more facilities compared to other schools. The difference in facilities was so apparent. Our chairs and tables were worn out. We do not have big football field, just a basketball court. Sadly, 30+ years later, my sons’ schools suffered from the same lack of facilities.

Seeing the quota system in action

I studied in a national school in Kuala Kangsar from 1986 to 1987 for Form 6. At the beginning of the school term, there were about 50 of us in our class 6 Science 3, about 50% Malays, and another 50% Chinese and only 1 Indian. Then half of the Malay students were gone, having been absorbed into matriculation in local universities. Few weeks later, the rest except two were gone, having been enrolled in colleges or universities overseas. I remember a girl, seated next to me, failed her mathematics in the first examination in the school but she told me she was going to Scotland (if I remember correctly) to do architecture on government scholarship.

For the Chinese, the trend was that students with 5 to 6As would get offer to go into UTM or UPM. This is very obvious from the following statistics from my school:

1. Students who took SPM in 1983 – 1 with 6As went to UTM to do petrochemical engineering course;
2. Students who took SPM in 1984 – 1 with 5As (if I remember correctly) went to UPM to do veterinary course;
3. Students who took SPM in 1985 (my year) – 1 with 6As went to UTM to do engineering course.

Students who got better results didn’t get any offers.

When I got into the law faculty of University of Malaya, we did a survey of the Chinese students in the faculty. I remember the lowest marks for Chinese was 70 points (STPM results) and there was only one student with 70 points. The rest were 74 and above. We did not survey the Malay students but 1 resident college-mate I spoke to had only 48 points (again if I remember correctly as it was almost 24 years ago).

Unjust policies

It was reported in the newspapers that the Minister of Education had reported in parliament that under the 9th Malaysia Plan, the national primary schools were alloted with RM4,468,100,000 which was RM22,450,000 per school whereas the Chinese primary schools were alloted with  RM142,500,000 which is RM1,740,000 per school. The Tamil primary schools were alloted with RM119,100,000.

In terms of percentage, national schools got 94.5%, Chinese schools 3% and Tamil schools 2.5% of the allocations.

This explains the lack of facilities in the national type schools.

It was reported on 16.10.2012 that the Minister had said that in 2012, a sum of RM937,000,000 was allocated to 8,216 national primary and secondary schools, RM87,000,000 to 1,294 Chinese primary schools and RM19,200,000 to 523 Tamil primary schools. On average:

1. A national school gets RM114,045.76;
2. A Chinese school gets RM67,233.38;
3. A Tamil school gets RM36,711.28

The above does not take into account the number of students in the schools and therefore I could not get the allocation per student in each of the different types of schools. As far as I know, most of the Chinese primary schools in the cities are crowded with about 50 students in a class.

Before the government implemented the “pinjaman buku” scheme, I remember the children of a lawyer in my firm were loaned textbooks but children of a clerk (who earned much lesser than the lawyer) who was in a national type school (formerly a mission school) were not eligible.

There are many other examples.

So, tell me, honourable Minister, are the vernacular schools or the unfair treatment of the rakyat and unjust policies the cause for disunity?

Please don’t start calling me a racist as I am not against the quota system but its implementation must be fair – help all the students who need help, regardless of race and religion. Further there must be minimum requirements for enrolment into institutions of higher learning, otherwise we will produce students which the work market does not want and the government needs to come up with schemes to help them get jobs.

Regards,

Ktkiak

Melaka

28.5.2013