This post grew out of comments that I made in a post on Jed Yoong’s blog which linked to another blogger’s post calling for all vernacular Tamil schools in Malaysia to be closed down. I think it’s worth taking the effort to explain that in this context, “vernacular schools” refers solely to primary schools that use Chinese and Tamil as the medium of instruction, while still receiving government funding, as opposed to those that teach using the national language, Bahasa Malaysia the so-called “Sekolah Rendah Jenis Kebangsaan”.

There are a couple of obfuscating factors at work here that needs to be explained. One, the original call to close down Tamil schools cited the generally poor quality of these schools as a primary reason. As Jed Yoong quoted from the original writer of the post, Balan:

One of the contributing factors leading Indian youth to gangsterism and other criminal activities is their inability to excel in education, particularly when they enter secondary school.

The new environment and being not conversant in Bahasa Malaysia which is the medium of teaching in secondary school have resulted in students dropping out after their PMR and SPM.

The reason this happens is the poor quality of Tamil schools in the country. Most of the Tamil schools in the country are poorly managed, lack facilities and are helmed by substandard headmasters and teachers.

But as I commented, this, as far as I know, does not apply to Chinese vernacular schools! It’s a well known fact that the Chinese in Malaysia place a high priority on their children’s education. If the Chinese vernacular schools prove to be of poorer quality than the national schools, I have no doubt whatsoever that the parents of the students attending them would immediately move them to better ones. This actually leads us to the second point: why is there such a difference between the quality of education offered by the Tamil vernacular schools and the Chinese ones?

As it turns out, while vernacular Chinese schools do indeed tap the government for funding, they also raise additional funds from parents and the general Chinese community. As I see it, this explains the disparity between the generally decrepit facilities and poor quality of education of the Tamil schools and the well equipped, highly regarded quality of education offered by Chinese ones.

Still, as these schools still receive government funding, it’s only fair to raise and discuss the issue of whether such schools should exist at all. The argument against them is perhaps best set out in this editorial by Azly Rahman which is well worth reading. The general idea is that vernacular schools segregates students by race at a young and impressionable age which, it is argued, is detrimental to the unity of the nation. To this line of argument, I beg to raise the following points:

1. While it’s heartwarming and indeed desirable to see young children of different races studying and playing together, I honestly believe that this will not help much in getting rid of the racial tensions that exist in the country. Let’s not be naive and believe that Malaysian citizens will ever mingle and live as if they were not of different races. Different races and cultures will always have different tastes in entertainment, food and even lifestyles. The point of the exercise should not be in eliminating differences but acknowledging them and even celebrating in them. What we should work towards is mutual tolerance and respect for each other, despite our differences, and the only way to achieve that is addressing perceived injustices with regards to government treatment towards different races and cultures. In other words, I do not believe that racial divisions arise from the people. I believe that they arise out of government policies.
2. There is a clear wish here to use public schools as institutions to create and foster a sort of Malaysian identity. I have misgivings concerning this because it seems to me to be overriding the parents’ right to educate and bring up their children as they see fit in the interests of what is thought to be a wider and greater good. Bringing up a child is an extremely personal and emotional affair and I believe that having the government interfere in that process, barring cases of outright child abuse, would be a violation of human rights. It is true that the government should not be obliged to cater and provide funding for every type of educational scheme wished for by parents, but in this case, such schools already exist and parents apparently do want their children to attend them.
3. As per above, it would seem to me that closing down these schools against the wishes of the community would not only fail in the long-term to foster the national unity desired, but cause plenty of short-term racial divisions. The Indian and Chinese communities would simply have yet another grievance to hold against the government and the Malays.

Finally, the detractors of the vernacular schools argue that the concerns of the ethnic communities can be assuaged by offering the maternal language of these communities as optional subjects in the national schools, upgrading the quality of the national schools and removing the creeping Islamisation and Ketuanan Melayu aspects from them. I argue the opposite. The existence of vernacular schools does not prevent these improvements to the national schools from being carried out. Show that the national schools can indeed meet the needs of the parents of the different communities, prove to them that they can offer education of good quality and put a firm end to racist teaching of Malay supremacy in them.  Achieve all that and the vernacular schools will simply wither and die on their own because no parent will want to send their children to them!