BEHIND the main canteen of SMK St. Francis, Malacca - a school built in 1880 by missionaries - is a smaller eating space with a sign that reads “Kantin Melayu”. 

The school, better known by its former name St. Francis Institute or SFI, is one of at least four other mission schools and a handful of vernacular schools in the state that have built a second canteen - for Muslim students and staff.

This second canteen is run by a Muslim operator from the main canteen.

The Malaysian Insight was informed of this two-canteen policy in certain schools by a reader, at the height of the debate on whether Malaysia should ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). – November 25, 2018.