OBVIOUSLY, in the eyes of some of our citizens, our education system is failing us. The current debate on a single school system is a manifestation of this, presumably.
In any system, there are detractors, of course, and we should evaluate dissenting voices by the merits of their arguments, not by the shrillness of their politics.
What are their arguments?
Strangely, they are less to do with issues of academia, and more on nationhood.
The current system, detractors say, is failing the nation as far as in getting our children to know each other. In short, it is not doing well one of its jobs, which is nation building.
The real world offers less opportunity and rather less effective avenues for race-benign bonding when compared to school.
We develop friendships and comradeship in school, ties less likely to be defined by the colour of our skins or the house of worship we go to. We play with our friends.
At work, we have acquaintances and colleagues and we develop professional relationships. In the commercial arena, we have transactions, and polite thank yous.
Apart from possible sign of age, as most of those hankering for a single-stream system are generally older, many of us are genuinely worried about the future of the country. Maybe we are constantly having our pessimist caps on, but we do not see how the present system could improve race relations.
We are concerned because we are seeing the deterioration of race relations daily in front of our eyes. Daily discourse, including, and especially, the personification of political ideas, seems to be spiced with racial elements.
Political ideologies offering a racial edge seem to be getting more space in the public consciousness.
The Constitution is clear in allowing various types of schools in the country, hence we have vernacular, religious, private and international schools. There are also boarding schools and church-run schools, and many people also home-school their children.
This diversity should be an asset but apart from the private schools -- where the privileged few regardless of race can afford to send their children to -- most of the other school systems promote the separation of our children from as early as six years old.
The diversity of our system is largely defined by either class, race or religion. How can these be good for a multi-racial country?
And yet, we continue, like Nero fiddling as Rome burns, to pretend as if the problem facing us is not serious enough for us to drop everything and work something out.
Real solutions and not patch work, like having 17-year-olds spending three months together.
While that in itself is a good idea, its effectiveness is surely very much less than one where our kids spend years together. Yet, we institutionalise societal fragmentation by making strangers of our children.
Champions of Bahasa Malaysia who are basking in the glory of reversing the policy to teach Mathematics and Science in English are forgetting that such a strategy makes the desertion of national schools more permanent.
Ironically, Bahasa Malaysia is ranked third in importance, after Mandarin or Tamil and English, in vernacular schools. How that is good for Bahasa Malaysia, I am not sure.
Thus, this is the situation we are in now. Our children are separated early and, in many cases, they are unlikely to form as good a bond as we may wish them to have.
We will pay later for the institutionalisation of race-based schools -- the Malays largely to national school, the Chinese largely to Chinese schools, and more and more, Indian kids are sent to Tamil schools.
Everyone is waving the Constitution when we talk of a single school system; the nation, it seems, be damned.
Now these are harsh words, I know, but I am at a loss trying to sum things up.
Still, the Constitution, unless changed, remains supreme. So what do we do?
I may sound like a broken record, if it is at all technologically possible these digital days, but the solution to this is to make national schools so good it defies logic to send our children anywhere else.
This is, of course, not an easy thing to do. There are a lot of legacy issues and problems, but we have to take the first step.
Perhaps politicians should take a step back, just for a while in case they are worried, and let parents have their say.
We should take apart our current school system, metaphorically of course, and put the parts and components in the parking lot.
We keep what is good and put them together, and discard those that are detrimental to nation building.
Then perhaps we can really have an excellent national school system and attract pupils of all races, vernacular schools notwithstanding.
This is almost a hair-pulling moment to some of us but I, personally, do not sense urgency among those who can do something about it.
Our nation's future is at stake.
Air Your comment
Log in with your Facebook account or use the form below to comment.
New Straits Times reserves the right not to publish offensive or abusive comments and those of hate speech, harassment, commercial promos and invasion of privacy. Your IP will be logged and may be used to prevent further submission.
The views expressed here are that of the members of the public and unless specifically stated are not those of NST.
Reader's Comments
(Latest Comments Displayed First)
Pak Mat USJ Subang :
Rome was not built in a day or in a year. It took many years to build Rome and so is the United States of America (USA) i.e. since 1776.
Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is trying to unite Malaysians as he believes with all Malaysians united there would be peace and harmony and with peace and harmony progress and development would be easier to be achieved and make all Malaysians happy.
The spirit of 1 Malaysia have been developed by the previous PMs since Tunku Abdul Rahman but politicaql leaders in the 18 political parties in their zest for post and power used race, language and religion to divide the rakyat.
The journey to 1Malaysia is a long journey. The Federal government not only has to solve the one stream school system. The Federal government has also to think how to unite the Muslims in Malaysia. Can we develop 1MALAYSIAN MUSLIMS and at the same time work on the concept of 1 MALAYSIA when the Muslim leaders in PAS are saying that the Muslims in UMNO are not true Muslims?
If ther non-Malays continue to say that they don agree for their children to attend a Malay stream national school how can Malaysia achieve the 1 Malaysia concept?
If Singapore can have an English stream school and Thailand, Japan, Korea, Taiwan etc. can have one stream school for all their citizens why cant Malaysia and Malaysians agree to a Malay stream school. What is the meaning of having Malay as the national language when some Malaysians opposed to the Malay stream school? Do they feel less Malaysians?
fhf:
I see that all these articles before mine are so long. I am a busy man, and I guess so are you , so I shall make my article as short as possible. Singapore, our small little neighbour has 3 universities, attracting the top students from all around thwe world, seeking a reasonably good education at a comparatively reasonable cost. The forthcoming 4th Uni has the collaboration of MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.....imagine, MIT coming to this small little island, so Simgapore must be on the correct educational path. Singapore uses English, it attracts the very best in the world, and, hitherto, it doesn't cost a lot.......need I go on sdome more....sorry, I have work to do..........
Angie:
By the time all these debates STOP ... probably my daughter (aged 14) and son (aged 11) will be out of school already. We should have focus on the education delivery system � which has so many faults itself until now.
Last week (after the final school exam) both my children and my in-law and sister�s children already are complaining that it is pointless to go school and mind you that they are all from different national school.
Shockingly but sadly truth, the teachers are just not there to teach for the remaining weeks before the end-year holidays kick-in.
Who is monitoring the education delivery system? So much time wasted and why talks about �Single Stream School� when we cannot even perfect our current education delivery system.
Imagine how we can lose valuable time from the children e.g. 20 schools multiple with 2000 students per school and then multiple with 15 solid school days (2-nov to 20-nov before the year-end holidays start) = 600,000 days of lost time.
This is translated to approx. 150 children lifespan from std 1 � 6 and form 1 � 5 wasted and this is only taking about school in Petaling Jaya only.
Focus on improving the education delivery system now and leave the 2nd generation to work on the Single Stream School. There will probably be in a better position to discuss this.
Rajan:
The writer must clarify about single stream.Is he telling all the Chinese,Tamil n Religious school should be taught in one language thus at the end we will achieve unity?
The Non-malays have reasons to oppose this suggestion based on so many factors.What is the point we talk about unity but government policies and action are discriminatory. The Non Malays sees that today the only Jabatan in government where they can successfuly get employed in the eduction ministry and that too with the existence of these school the job is assured.
with abolishing the vernacular school system u are ringing the last bell for the closure for these school.First the government policies n action must change in order to win the heart and mind of the non malays.The non malays should be given a fair and equal treatment in job employment. How many Non maalys are working in the education department.Ur unity talk and one malaysia should reflect in action not in talk.NOn Malays cant even become a clerk in the vernacular schools.U dont see many non malays becoming principals or HM in the secondary schools. when quota's removed.meritocracy is accepted and recognised then people will understand the concept of one stream.Let the government open up UiTM n MARA for Non malays to reflect their seriousness in uniting ONE MALAYSIA
atq:
Now a days, everyone talks about school. Everyone talked about school problems, but nobody tries to overcome. It is because, to overcome school problems there must be a policy change. First of all; equip all teachers with legal powers just as a policeman. You cant expect a teacher to carry out his duties without any legal powers. School teachers are not universities lecturers. They have to equip our young pupils with 'JERI' (stands for Jasmani,Emosi,Rohani and Intelek). But sad to say up to now there is no one who understand our teachers. Writers are paid thats why they write. Ministers and officers of the Education ministries have no time to listen. The lists may go on, but whats the point since no one is listening.
OnDaStreet:
It is indeed that our nation's future can be considered at stake..
I personally have written a series of article, supporting of such noble idea for one stream school..
5 Series (so far): http://ondastreet.wordpress.com/category/satu-sekolah/
Thank you.
~ OnDaStreet
RockKL:
If you want people to buy your product, make sure it is a quality product.
If you want non-malay to study in Malay school, make sure it is the best among the streams. People don't want schools that produce the most unemployable graduates.
BS:
Sadly to say this after 52 years of independence, we didn't nothing to improve the education...
i)we have a choice to provide world class education at out doorstep using english as medium but we didn't choose so.
ii)we didn't train our teachers to be competent enough in using english as medium of instruction.
iii)we didn't have a road map for single stream education. politics have too much say. let the parents decide.
iv)we didn't support students on national school to study their own language.
v)we need to revamp the education system i.e. holistic education where our children become potential leaders, creators, innovators, artists, even thinkers, not merely straight A achievers!
i'm not sure whether we can still implement the one stream education, but one thing for sure a journey of thousand miles begin with a single step.
cfa:
So much has been said about the different streams of education system being a hindrance to national unity. Eminent academicians, ministers and even our former PM, Tun Dr Mahathir are calling for a Single Stream School as a tool to unite Malaysians. A Minister even cited the example of Singapore, where the then PM, Lee Kuan Yew abolished Chinese Schools in favour of a Single Stream National Educational System. Our current PM, is calling for a Single Stream School as part of his greater 1Malaysia Agenda.
Whilst it is true that no other country has different streams for educational system, it is also true that no other country in this world (to my knowledge) has an explicit entry policy into public universities based on ethnic and religious basis.
What sort of values are we teaching our children, that you should study hard and work hard in a National School but accept that this hard work will not form the basis on whether you will be accepted into a public university but rather their ethnic background or religious believes? Hence, this is the main reason why most non-Malay parents don't want to send their children to a National School.
There are other reasons why non-Malay parents don't send their children to National Schools such as lack of emphasis on Mother Tongue and the quality of Teachers. However, these are secondary and can be easily overcome.
If the Government were to abolish entry quotas into public Universities based on ethnic and religious considerations and set the entry requirements based strictly on meritocracy alone, I believe that non-Malays would support a Single Stream School. However, this means a true sprit of meritocracy and not the current system where you have STPM vs Matriculation.
Until and unless the Government is ready for that, please do not say that the Chinese and Tamil schools are dividing the country. It is the entry quotas into public universities and that is the real dividing factor for National Unity. I am surprised that no one has said ever said this to our current PM.
