Learning to live together in KL

By Joceline Tan

KUALA LUMPUR: Former Member of Parliament Nungsari Ahmad Radhi was one of the more rational and open-minded members in the Malaysian Parliament.

He finds it ironic that, more than 40 years later, Malaysians are "still not politically ready for it".

"There is a lack of political will and political parties need to take responsibility. Perhaps we have to wait till the senior members of the present generation are gone," he said.

He argued well, preferring to go on facts and logic, rather than relying on emotional or populist issues such as race and religion.

Journalists who covered Parliament thought it was a result of the years he spent in American universities, where he obtained his bachelor and master's degrees in mathematics and a PhD in economics.

But Dr. Nungsari, who now works with the Kuala Lumpur-based World Enterprise Institute, has often told friends that a great deal of what he is today is due largely to his early school years.

He went to an ethnically-mixed school in his hometown, in the south-east of Penang island, and lessons then were still conducted in English.

He did well and went on to an exclusive secondary science school, run along the boarding-school concept and reserved mainly for top Malay students in the state.

But the primary school he went to is now known as a national- type school, using only the national language, Bahasa Malaysia, and the student profile is now almost entirely Malay.

Likewise, the residential school where he completed his secondary studies has become exclusively bumiputra and the "fantastic maths teachers" sourced from Chung Ling High School have long gone.

Dr. Nungsari's experience belongs to the cohort of Malaysians whose education came between the last years of English-based instruction and the start of Malay-medium instruction.

But, more than being able to speak and write good English, his generation also gained a multi-racial school experience.

"I think that was where people like me started developing tolerance, something that's missing in the education system today," he said.

"One of our biggest failures is that we have not developed a genuine national education system. We like to think there is one educational system, but there are actually three systems."

As a result, the last three decades have seen a compartmentalisation of race and types of schools.

The Malays are largely enrolled in national-type schools, where Malay is the medium of instruction, the Chinese opt for Chinese schools and rural Indians go to ill-equipped Tamil schools.

The Malaysian schools system is under intense scrutiny. After more than 40 years of nation-building, fingers are being pointed at the education system for the way Malaysians are thinking along racial lines.

The schools are being blamed for the lack of racial integration, a fact that could not have been more tragically emphasized than by last month's clashes between Indians and Malays.

Some of the pointing fingers belonged to no less than Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.

He charged that non-Malays were not sending their children to national-type schools because they were uncomfortable with the way the Islamic agenda was being pushed, such as pressuring students to don the baju kurung (Malay dress) and tudung (head- scarf).

Some Malaysians, including Education Minister Tan Sri Musa Mohamad, are of the view that the current structure of the country's education system had contributed to communalism in society at large and kept intact the racial divide between the different ethnic groups.

They point out that the three main types of primary schools had segregated young students in their most formative years.

Dr. Nungsari said: "There's little opportunity to interact. It develops ignorance and that leads to intolerance if nothing is done."

Or, as the well-known Prof. Emeritus Tan Sri Awang Had Salleh put it: "I wouldn't say it has caused divisiveness, but it has slowed down the process of national integration."

Some of the more hardline Malay academics say it is time the government is firm about having a single-language school system. Malays make up an overwhelming 95 percent of the enrollment in national-type primary schools.

On the other hand, more than 80 percent of Chinese send their children to Chinese primary schools. Tamil primary schools absorb about 30 percent of Indian children.

Apart from these, there are the residential science schools, which are open only to Malays and natives from Sabah and Sarawak.

There are also some 300,000 Malays enrolled in religious schools.

Even the universities have not been spared.

Last year, a Universiti Malaya study revealed that 98 percent of Malay students do not mix socially with their non-Malay peers, whereas 99 percent of Chinese and 97 percent of Indian undergraduates interact only with others of their own race.

In some states, such as Kelantan and Terengganu, where Malays make up more than 90 percent of the population, ignorance about the unfamiliar becomes even more acute.

A Eurasian journalist who visited a Terengganu school several years ago reported how a group of Malay girls, clad in baju kurung and tudung, stood watching her from the school balcony and "they were making hand-signs of horns sticking from their heads".

It took a while for the journalist to realize that they were implying that she was satanic because of her tight jeans and flowing and uncovered hair.

The pressure from the majority is not confined only to non- Malays.

Razak Baginda, executive director of the Malaysian Strategic Research Center think-tank, complained that his daughter's teacher tried to make her wear a tudung,and this happened in a big, urban school in Kuala Lumpur. He put his foot down because he believed his daughter should be allowed to decide on this issue herself.

This has not been an overnight phenomenon. It has been apparent since the late 1970s.

That was about the period when the Education Ministry began to phase out English-language schools and put them under the national-type system.

Enrollment in Chinese schools began to swell. Over the years, the perception that Chinese schools instilled better discipline, and had sounder instruction in mathematics and science, drew even more non-Malays from national-type schools.

To compound matters, the national-type schools implemented the POL, or Pupils' Own Language classes, in a half-hearted way.

Malaysian Chinese Association deputy secretary-general Rita Sim said: "I'm English-educated but I sent my children to Chinese schools because I saw the falling standards in national-type schools."

It is not that Sim does not care about racial integration but practical considerations, such as academic standards, discipline and economic prospects, matter a great deal to parents.

Moreover, not everyone sees vernacular schools as the main cause of racial polarization.

Dr. Kua Kia Soong, principal of the private Chinese-language New Era College, said: "Blaming the vernacular schools -- that's a fallacy and a red herring."

The roots of polarization run deeper and the main cause, he insisted, is racial discrimination and socio-economic inequalities.

"Everybody knows it. It's just that people are reluctant to admit it."

He points to Indonesia, where the national ideology has been implemented rigorously, but where violent ethnic strife and disunity have nevertheless erupted because of the unequal economic and social opportunities.

Said Sim: "I think we have to be honest and admit that the way the New Economic Policy (NEP) has been implemented has caused resentment among the races.

"You are a non-Malay, you get straight As, but you cannot get into university or into the faculty of your choice. Or you are not rich, but you cannot get a scholarship. What happens? You get mad.

"You see kids from rich Malay families getting the scholarships. You get madder.

"The NEP was very important for Malaysia to correct the economic imbalance between the races but its implementation was flawed."

There are very few non-Malays who do not appreciate the political stability brought about by the NEP, especially following the upheaval in Indonesia, but they stress that it should not deny factors such as merit and need among the non- Malays.

For instance, government MP Ng Lip Yong officiated recently at a function in a school in his constituency, where he handed out certificates to about 40 Indian and Chinese boys who had completed a trade-skills course.

He asked the people responsible for the effort -- the youth wing of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) -- why there were no Malays among the graduating class.

He was told that the Malay boys got scholarships to go to Mara colleges, which were set up exclusively for bumiputras. That was what inspired the MIC youth wing to raise funds through private means to help the non-Malays.

Ng said: "When things like this happen in the school, it creates a certain mindset among people of different races. I think we have to think through policies like these.

"I'm not saying the Malays should be deprived but I am talking about more opportunities for needy and deserving Malays and non- Malays."

The schools may be a breeding ground for intolerance but, according to a Chinese lawyer, the real resentment starts when people leave school for the real world.

"Being discriminated against for a place in university, or a job or business contract, can really aggravate the situation because it affects your livelihood. It may have an even worse effect than not having mixed in school," the lawyer said.

In this context, the Vision School concept, a government plan to house Malay, Chinese and Tamil schools under a facility- sharing complex, is unlikely to succeed beyond a superficial interaction between the races if they know their classmates in the adjacent school will be going on to university on a government scholarship, while they will have to rely on their own resources.

A disturbing part of the above discussion was the way one segment viewed the education system as the main cause of racial segregation, whereas the other segment, mainly non-Malays, perceived the issue of national integration as a broad-based phenomenon.

Call it a blind spot or vested interests, but such criss- crossed perspectives have, basically, hindered a more cohesive approach to national education in the country.

University sociologist Mansor Mohd. Noor, who has spent years studying race relations, says: "Our educational system must transform itself.

"The current debate on schools and its effects on racial integration is good, but it will lead nowhere without genuine changes in education policies."

For a start, he said, mother-tongue languages should be taught in the national-type schools in a more committed way and by qualified teachers.

Other suggestions: Multi-culturalism to be taught as a compulsory subject; making study loans and scholarships accessible to those who qualify academically and economically; and including all needy students in welfare schemes, such as book loans and food subsidies, irrespective of ethnicity and religion.

In short, education has to be less race-based while remaining conscious of the priorities and aspirations of the different ethnic groups.

"And we need some real political commitment," said Dr. Mansor.

-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network