KUALA LUMPUR: The government is planning to house national-type and vernacular schools on a single campus, amid concerns of loose racial ties in the country, in a move which may pacify those opposing a single stream school system.
While it was not specified whether the objective was outlined in an education blueprint, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the idea was to encourage students of various races to interact with each other through common activities, instead of being divided due to different languages and curriculums.
The campus, he said, would organise its morning assembly involving all students and form unified sports teams, among others.
“What we want to do, is that we will bring three schools (national and vernacular schools) on one campus and some common activities will be (carried out for all students to take part).
“(The activities are) not related to the particular school but all the three schools. Perhaps, (they) can form a football team and they will contest not as representatives of their school but as a group based on some other criteria.
“At least they will play together and of course when they have assemblies, all three (types of schools) will attend the same assembly together.”
Dr Mahathir was speaking during a question-and-answe forum at a luncheon hosted by the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce (AmCham).
He said this when asked by one member of the floor what Malaysians could do to help the government.
Malaysian schools are commonly denominated into two types — national schools, where the medium of instruction is in Bahasa Malaysia, and vernacular schools of which the primary language is either Mandarin or Tamil.
Dr Mahathir said such a campus would promote stronger unity among the people, despite differences in race and culture.
“So we are trying to get them to be together again... well, not again, but (I) would like them to be together at some stage in their lives.”
Dr Mahathir said he would prefer to implement a single stream school system in order to nurture unity among Malaysians from a young age.
However, he said, several segments in the country were insistent that there should be divergent education systems and this had resulted in a generally detached society.
“The simple answer to that (question) is to have one single school system. So everybody goes to the same school, develop friends. And when they go out, they go out with each other (even though they are from different races).
“But then, democratic politics is such that you have to cater to lots of people and some of them are very insistent that we should have a three-school education system... three languages in our schools.
“(The students) don’t go to the same school and they don’t meet each other (getting to know people from each race). When they grow (up), they have to work with people (from other races), and they find it very uncomfortable.
“But the best way to get people to come together is of course through education, going to the same school and same universities. But that is not available at this moment.”