Part 1 of 2.

BLINDFOLD me and drop me at a school on any school day in any country. Upon removing my blindfold I would be able to tell right away whether that society is developed or still undeveloped. The essence of my observation is captured in the ancient Chinese wisdom:  The schools of a nation are its future in miniature.

The contrast between a Japanese or South Korean school versus that in Egypt or Mexico could not be more startling. In Malaysia, visit any sekolah kebangsaan and compare that to any school in Singapore, and you would know that Malaysia is way behind that island republic, and why. During my youth, or even a generation or two ago, the schools in both countries were comparable.

In first-world America, there are scattered enclaves of the third world. Visit the schools in the Blue Mountains of Appalachia, the deep rural south of Mississippi, America’s inner cities, and the Indian reservations, and the reason for their backwardness would be apparent – their rotten schools. Obvious too would be the solution – improve their schools!

Malaysia may be in the third world, but tease the economic and demographic statistics and you would discern definite clumps of first world, just like America with her third world enclaves. The kampung and the new phenomenon of urban blight of high-rise edifices (rumah pangsa) are inhabited by Malays, with their per capita income matching their third world existence. They are a world away from Bungsar or Bukit Kiara; likewise their schools.

Ever wonder why Malays rich and poor are increasingly enrolling their children in Chinese schools? That is reminiscent of the Irish Catholics of the 1950s sending their children to the much superior “Godless” Protestant schools of the English despite threats of being excommunicated.

With his Vision 2020 now all but forgotten, Dr Mahathir Mohamad coined another grand but much less heralded scheme, his “Shared Prosperity 2030.” This time he wisely chose a much shorter time span, a decade instead of a generation. At 95 it would be unlikely for him to be alive at the end to see whether it would be successful. I was certain that back in 1990 when he chose Vision 2020 with its time span of thirty years, he did not expect to live to see its conclusion.

Dr Mahathir may or may not be around come 2030, but Malaysia certainly would. If present trends continue, meaning, continued deterioration of Malaysian schools, then Shared Prosperity 2030 would meet the same ignoble fate as Vision 2020.

If Dr Mahathir were to live long enough to see the failure of his Shared Prosperity 2030, I wonder who or what he would blame it on then. I am uncertain his surviving till 2030 would be a blessing or a cruel divine punishment.

No nation could progress unless it has an enlightened system of education and pay attention to its schools, colleges, and universities. Ireland, Singapore and South Korea would not be where they are today had they not done that.

The world today rightly lauds China for uplifting hundreds of millions of her citizens out of poverty within a generation or two, an unprecedented achievement. Her economy now rivals that of America. The world attributes China’s success to her joining the global mainstream, as with her entry into the World Trade Organisation as well as embracing capitalism and free enterprise. Those may be contributing factors, but the pivot point was Deng Xiaoping’s early decision to rehabilitate China’s schools and universities devastated by Mao Zedong’s madness.

As revealed in Ezra Vogel’s biography of Deng, soon after taking over from Mao and early during America’s initial and tentative rapprochement with China, Deng broke diplomatic protocols to meet and then asked the head of a junior American delegation then visiting Beijing to plead to President Jimmy Carter to accept a few hundred bright Chinese students into top American universities. A very modest request that Carter readily acceded to.

A generation later – the time span of Vision 2020 – America hosts hundreds of thousands of Chinese students. Those American-trained students are now leapfrogging China into becoming a leader in IT and biotechnology, among others. They are the ones transforming China.

The traffic was not all one-way. I was visiting Beijing in early 2000. The plane was full of American teachers, lecturers, and professors bound for China. International schools, especially British and American, blossomed in China. Hundreds and thousands of Chinese students flock to attend cram courses for TOEFL (English test for non-English speaking foreign students wishing to attend American colleges), SAT (America’s matriculating examination), GRE (for entry into graduate schools), and GMAT (for graduate business schools).

Those Chinese students and leaders were not at all worried that by embracing English and the West generally they were not memartarbatkan (dignifying down) their own language or culture, the current obsession with Malay leaders.

There is a lesson there for those Malay leaders. Focus on education if you want your society to join the ranks of the developed. Improve your schools and colleges. Set the bar high for students and make them sit for the same tests as those from advanced countries, not the local SPM and matrikulasi. Modernise the curriculum. Import foreign teachers if that is what it would take.

That is not a secret recipe. It has been time-tested both in the East (Taiwan and Singapore) as well as in the West (Ireland). Time for Malaysian leaders to do likewise, unless they and Malaysians are satisfied being perennially in the Third World.

These essays are my views towards Malaysia achieving that end. In essence they are updates of my earlier book, An Education System Worthy Of Malaysia (2003). – September 28, 2020.

* M. Bakri Musa reads The Malaysian Insight. 

* 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.