Non-Malay parents tend to stop sending their children to government schools  for lack of quality education, creeping Islamisation and religious agenda in those institutions, said DAP parliamentarian Zairil Khir Johari.

He noted that there were about 70 percent Malays and 30 percent non-Malays in government schools in the past but figures for the latter community  have now dwindled to only two to three percent.

“Creeping Islamisation and the religious agenda for the last 20-30 years (in national schools) are scaring off parents,” he claimed during his speech at the Great Debate on Malaysia’s Historical Heritage organised by the British High Commission in Penang last night.

However, he sees the parents' decision to sent their kids to national or vernacular schools as a matter of personal choice.

“In the 1960s and 70s, parents sent their children to government schools because the quality was decent. Today, we can see from various results, assessments and comparisons that the standard has dropped.

“Parents just want the best quality education for their children, it does not matter what languages they are taught in,” he added.

Zairil (left) also does not see vernacular schools being a hindrance to national integration or unity as Malaysians.

“I have friends who went to Chinese schools and did not speak Malay or English until they were 17 but they were great Malaysians, I have no problem being friends with them.

“At the same time, I see people go through the national education system, who supposedly studied in mixed schools but still end up as racists,” he quipped.

The two-hour session themed ‘Is Malaysia’s Historical Legacy a Hindrance to the Country’s Future Development?’ was organised in collaboration with the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus’ Institute of Asia Pacific Studies, and chaired by BMF89.9 producer Sharaad Kuttan.

Other panelists at the event held at the Wawasan University included Ivanpal Grewal, political secretary to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mah Siew Keong; Himanshu Bhatt, journalist and director of Cape Poetics Circle; Rebecca Duckett, former council member of the Penang Heritage Trust; and George Town Arts Festival director Joe Sidek.

The discussion on vernacular schools comes ahead of the issue being debated, as requested by 191 out of 755 Umno divisions in the party’s annual general assembly starting this weekend in Kuala Lumpur.

Integrate instead of assimilate choice

During his speech, Ivanpal said Malaysia made a choice in 1957 (Independence) to integrate instead of assimilate as opposed to Thailand and Indonesia.

He said vernacular schools are part of the country’s historical legacy and played an important part of the country’s development in education.

“I do not think national type schools are a hindrance to unity,” he said, adding that the federal government has made efforts to bring students from different type schools together, to integrate, unite and learn to understand one another.

“This is essentially recognising the historical and unique place national type schools occupy,” he said.

However, Duckett prefers primary school children not to go through separate education systems.

“This is something I feel strongly about.  When you are young at that age, you form an opinion about everything, the current situation of the education system... you can call it messed up... aggravates the problem of racial separation,” she said.

“I would love to see children in primary schools have the option to learn other languages but at the primary school level, that’s where everyone should be mixing,” she added.

To Bhatt, however, the lack of knowledge in the country’s own history keeps Malaysians from having a sense of collective identity.

He remembers that world history, including the histories of Malaya and South-East Asia, was a very important part of his education back in St Xavier’s Institution.

He cited the example of the ancient Hindu kingdom in Lembah Bujang, Kedah, which courted controversy recently when developers excavated the historical site.

“Lembah Bujang hardly merits one or two pages in my daughter’s history book, but do you know that the oldest building and man made structure in the whole of South-East Asia had just been excavated in Lembah Bujang?” asked the veteran journalist.

“We do not have iconic historical structures that allows us to symbolically relate to something historic unlike in Indonesia, where there are ancient cities like the Borubudur, or Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

“Here, we only have an esoteric legacy. Our children don’t grow up with this sense of identity, value and time that allows them to identify with this land.”