BN grappling with resurgence of Chinese schools

(TMI) – When Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced last week that the government would bow to demands to transfer out of Chinese national-type primary schools teachers who were not Mandarin-proficient, it was an acknowledgement of the community’s deep-seated discontent with the Barisan Nasional (BN) government.

 

And nowhere is this more apparent than in the education system where government Chinese primary schools have become the choice of most parents from the community when enrolling their children because of the relative autonomy of these institutions and the perceived superiority of the environment.

This preference has made it more difficult for the Barisan Nasional government to ignore the demands of pro-Chinese education groups and has put the survival of the MCA at stake.

Malaysia’s over century-old Chinese school system, once seen to be on its last legs in the 1970s and even into the early 1980s, received a new lease on life thanks to widespread perception that national schools are of lower quality and non-Muslim fears that the schools are being used for Islamic proselytisation.

Chinese education issues also now threaten the political fortunes of Barisan Nasional’s second largest component party — the MCA — which has been widely blamed for the problems plaguing Chinese schools — from lack of teachers to the alleged glacial pace of approvals for new schools to the non-recognition of private Chinese secondary school exams despite recognition in countries such as the UK and the US.

It has also intensified the debate, which has spanned more than half a century, of whether vernacular schools hamper national unity as students from different racial groups spend their formative years separated from one another.

Chinese schools, which use Mandarin as the medium of instruction, are a legacy of Malaysia’s colonial history and now make up part of a complex educational landscape which parents have to navigate.

Figures from the Ministry of Education show that there are now 1,291 government Chinese primary schools, out of a total of 7,709.

They make up the second largest number of primary schools after Malay-medium national primary schools which number 5,949.

The picture changes drastically however when it comes to secondary education as there are no government Chinese secondary schools.

Read more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/bn-grappling-with-resurgence-of-chinese-schools/