Khairy fears ‘nightmare’ of closing vernacular schools now

Sheridan Mahavera Lee Chi Leong Sheridan Mahavera, Lee Chi Leong Updated 6 years ago · Published on 20 Aug 2019 7:00AM · 6 Comments

Former Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin says Malaysians should focus on making national schools the institution of choice for parents and pupils. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Afif Abd Halim, August 20, 2019.

THE window for establishing a single national school system was closed in 1957, said former Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin yesterday, adding that Malaysians have to move forward with the current set-up of multiple languages and streams.

Khairy, long considered a moderate voice in the Malay nationalist party, said abolishing the vernacular system would be a “policy nightmare” now.

Instead, Malaysians should focus on making national schools as the institution of choice for parents and pupils, he said.

The Rembau MP differs from many of his party’s supporters, who have long believed that the country’s Mandarin and Tamil vernacular schools, are an obstacle to national unity.

Umno ally PAS also said vernacular schools are a barrier to social cohesion recently.

“If we want a single education system, we should have done it in 1957 or 1963, but the terms of our union allowed vernacular schools.

“Once you have allowed it, it is difficult to undo,” Khairy said in a public talk at the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia.

The Beyond 2020, Fresh Views, New Visions talk featured Khairy, and Pakatan Harapan leaders Liew Chin Tong and Nurul Izzah Anwar, who debated the policies Malaysia needed beyond 2020, past Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Vision 2020 plan.

Deputy Defence Minister Liew Chin Tong says distrust of vernacular schools could be solved if we embraced multilingual Malaysians. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Afif Abd Halim, August 20, 2019.

“If today, somebody said ‘we have one single education system’, which means no more Chinese, Tamil schools, another person will come and say ‘how about your madrasah and sekolah pondok (private Islamic schools)? You have to get rid of them, too’.

“What about parents who send their kids to international and private schools?” Khairy responded to a member of the audience who asked whether vernacular schools should be maintained.

“It is a policy nightmare, not to mention nightmare in terms of politics, I believe it is a non-starter.”

The better goal, Khairy said, would be to make national schools so good that parents would prefer them over other types of school.

“So that is what we have to do, I don’t know how to get there, that is a real moon shot, the Mars-shot, if you ask me right now.”

Liew, who is deputy defence minister, said distrust of vernacular schools could be solved if Malaysians stopped distrusting people who spoke multiple languages and embraced all the major tongues as the nation’s cultural heritage.

National schools could also be the school of choice if they started teaching multiple languages and were multicultural, said Liew, who is also DAP political education bureau director.

He added that some Chinese primary schools are becoming more “national” in character as the population of non-Chinese pupils starts to outnumber the Chinese.

“The point is: once we no longer fear each other’s language, once we no longer fear each other, but we see that these languages are a heritage of our nation, when we can speak multiple languages, then the question of single schools won’t arise,” Liew added. – August 20, 2019.

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Comments

  • Khairy misses the point! The reason why vernacular school exists is purely a rational choice and not a racial one. I for one always hated learning mandarin but I will send my children to a vernacular school purely for the language advantage that they will obtain.

    It doesn't matter if our national school is a bahasa, japanese or french one, the choice will still be a chinese school due to the rise of China.

    Posted 6 years ago by Anonymous 1234 · Reply

  • Why tinker with a system that is working satisfactorily? Those who are in the vernacular schools have no complaints except for the sometimes hamhanded interference by the education ministry, simply for the sake of interfering. These schools have garnered a wealth of experience which the mandarins walking the corridors of the ministry have no clue about. If the government wants to do some good for the future of the country, focus on the abysmal performance of 'national' schools by removing unnecessary curricula and leaving matters of religion and morals to the parents. A comprehensive, common civics course for all should suffice. Sixty years of politicking with and severely damaging the education system is enough. Try to elevate the standard of the 'national' schools instead of attempting to lower that of the vernacular schools or stupidly calling their abolition.

    Posted 6 years ago by Simple Sulaiman · Reply

  • Imagine conversing with a Malaysian who cant understand Malaysian because throughout his or her life, he or her been conversing in foreign language. Imagine then trying to repeat what you said in English and the clueless faces dont change. That is real disrespect to our cultural identity as Malaysians. I feel as though we dont have this problem when we expose the youth to study in multi-cultural schools. I feel as though the problem began in childhoods of those who are comfortable in foreign culture, foreign to Malaysia's heritage and never took the initiative to branch out further.

    If vernacular schools are really the answer, lts then move to establish malaysian vernacular schools in India and China, the same methid how we established them here. Lets be consistent with our narrative.

    Posted 6 years ago by Ikhlas Rosly · Reply

  • "The better goal, Khairy said, would be to make national schools so good that parents would prefer them over other types of school." Khairy is absolutely right here. Some of the national schools were the former English Medium schools. After changeover, all of them suffered a decline in standards. This started driving parents to enrol their children in the vernacular schools. Today, not only most Chinese children go to Chinese schools, but over 100,000 Malay children are in the Chinese Schools! Why did the parents of these children abandon the National Schools?? Had the standard of the former English medium schools not declined after changeover to Malay medium, the new Malay medium schools would have been the choice of most parents. Khairy has seen the picture correctly. But how to change the present Sekolah Kebangsaan which are more like religious schools than secular schools into schools better than the Chinese medium schools? Like it or not, the Chinese schools are the benchmark of good education today. Dong Zong was professionally right to object to Khat lessons as they would be a waste of time and in no way contribute to improve the standard of Bahasa Malaysia, as Anwar Ibrahim said.

    Posted 6 years ago by Ravinder Singh · Reply

  • National schools could also be the school of choice....
    Dream on! As long as those religious retards are in charge there is no way the school will be the preferred choice. The first thing they do in school assembly is to doa selamat. Then follow by more religious empty talk. Then doa again to have better exam result. Then doa again to get rid of budaya barat!

    Posted 6 years ago by Chee yee ng · Reply

  • I think it will take decades for National schools to become the preferred choice. Look at the kind of teachers it has now compared to decades ago? The BN Government destroyed the local schools and there may not be any hope of revival.

    Posted 6 years ago by Sunita petrus · Reply