IT seems nothing is safe from being politicised these days, even education. If anything, it has gotten worse, with the year-old government often blamed for policy decisions, including those made before some Pakatan Harapan leaders were born! Survivalist politics have driven Umno and PAS further to the right, and they will do whatever it takes to retain the Malay ground they gained since Barisan Nasional’s shock defeat a year ago.

Fitting neatly into the “Us v Them” narrative would be national-type schools.

A symbol of resilience and community pride, or a stumbling block to nation-building, depending on who you ask, Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan have been the subject of increasing debate over the past few years. With the last Punjabi school closed in 2000, two categories of national-type schools remain – Chinese and Tamil, each with its own set of issues (e.g. some non-Tamil Indians demanding schools with their dialects as the medium of instruction).

Love them or hate them, these schools have contributed immensely to the growth of education in the country. They have helped ease the government’s burden, in terms of budget and curriculum development, getting the community to pitch in.

Ironically, both these schools generally represent the two ends of Malaysia’s education infrastructure quality spectrum. Tamil schools frequently need to fight for government assistance and work hard to stay relevant, while Chinese ones make proper infrastructure and excellent results a seemingly effortless endeavour, with both the public and private sectors assisting in these schools’ infrastructure development.

Chinese schools have also developed their own ecosystem, even an examination system. The Unified Examination Certificate acts as a “feeder” exam for entry to private universities – not only Chinese-medium institutions, but many Western ones as well. In many ways, the quality of education at a semi-private (independent) or public Chinese school matches that of much more expensive private English-medium schools following a Canadian, American or Australian curriculum.

These achievements – no small feat given the size of their student population – make the criticism levelled at Chinese schools seem unfair, especially when such criticism is not aimed at international or religious schools, both of which have a different curriculum from national schools. It is also a bit classist to allow rich kids to study anything they want, while insisting that children from middle-income families stick to the mainstream. To simply insist on a single school type without addressing underlying issues is not only presumptive and lazy, but risks a collapse into mediocrity, like what had happened to many top-performing English-medium schools in the 1960s and 1970s.

Instead of attacking the existing system, perhaps, we need to take a step back and admit that we have a problem. The quality of our national schools is decreasing. The exodus of non-Malay students from these schools has led to an increasingly polarised syllabus and policies (both official and verbal, taught by adventurous “little Napoleons”).

The concurrent development of multiple school types exhausts resources, wastes building space and hinders us from optimising students’ potential. We could relook the single session’s waste of space, and re-examine the relevance of single-sex schools post-Christian missionary era.

Instead of criticising national-type schools, we would do well to take a leaf out of their book. What motivates their students? Why do Chinese schools do well in Math? How do they convince so many corporations to make huge donations when many national schools’ parent-teacher associations struggle to fill out 500 Jogathon cards? Why do they like to build basketball courts instead of football fields? Why are they so good that even the parents of politicians who openly slam them, had sent these very leaders to study there? These are questions that can help us build a better national syllabus and better schools for our children, and have a public education system we can be proud of.

When the three education reports of the 1950s – Barnes, Ordinance and Fenn-Wu – reached a compromise in the Razak Report, the main aim was nation-building, while tolerating the needs of the various education groups.

Perhaps, it is time to relook this matter holistically and reach a new compromise, one that addresses the flaws of our previous one, and one that sets aside political expedience to do what’s right, without U-turns or emotive, counterproductive piecemeal policies. – July 3, 2019.

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.