What lies deep beneath Malaysia’s failing education system

A couple of months ago, a friend who was a secondary school English language teacher told me she had applied for optional retirement. 

“Why? You still have many more good years to go,” I enquired. 

“I had enough. There’s just too much paperwork,” she replied. “And these days, it is all about the numbers…. Then … there is that other matter…. You know, the system!” 

I knew exactly what she was referring to. She, like many other ethnic minority civil servants, had reached her glass ceiling! There was absolutely no hope for her to climb the civil service ladder and carry on in a more dynamic role. 

I have had the privilege of working with her and knew she was an excellent teacher and outstanding district and state resource teacher. She would have been an excellent role model as a school leader.

Everyone knows about these ‘unwritten’ policies, some of which may be orchestrated by ‘little Napoleons’ within the system, with personal racist agendas and who may be running the whole show. These ‘policies’ can be very discouraging and dismissive of dedicated teachers like her. 

Then there is another teacher I know. She is a skilled English-language teacher with a doctorate in education and extensive teaching experience. But she was just biding her time before opting out in a few years. 

As an ethnic minority teacher, she had been told she would never be appointed as school principal of any national school (unless it was a mission school) – because such roles are allegedly reserved for people of a particular ethnic group. 

So, who writes these unwritten policies? 

This was nothing new to me. Still, I was saddened. These policies discourage promising ethnic minority candidates from becoming educators because of the limited career advancement opportunities for them.

With so many excellent teachers leaving the system and so many young people emigrating, something is amiss. But no one wants to bell the cat. 

Against this backdrop, the PM has asked Singapore for teachers to help arrest the declining standards in the English language in Malaysia.

That, I felt, was a national embarrassment. Are we now so deficient in proficient English language speakers at home that we have to beg for them from beyond our own shores? 

Not only have we squandered our own English language edge over the last four decades, but we have also failed to optimise the resources we still have.

Many, including some of my own students, had applied to become English language teachers. But they were declined.

When I asked them why, they shrugged their shoulders and said it could be due to other selection ‘criteria’ for teacher education. 

We need to seriously consider the implications of such perceptions. 

Are highly qualified potential teachers turned down because of another ‘criteria’, aside from their mastery of their respective disciplines? 

And so, we return to that cat that no one wants to bell. What if I dared to give it a name and call it institutionalised racism? When it happens in the education system, the resulting implications have both an immediate and rippling effect for generations to come. 

It is a hard pill to swallow. But if the Ministry of Education genuinely wants to curb the decline in education standards, we will have to confront the tough realities and implications such policies have brought us. 

The MoE may also need to have a look at those ‘little Napoleons’ (if they exist), apparently with their own racist agendas, lurking in the corridors of power.

To be fair, the ethnic population of any school should not matter, as long as the teachers appointed are the best we can put into our schools, regardless of race, creed or religion. 

I have seen some extraordinary teachers of all ethnicities. We need them all, regardless of their race. We just need to learn to be race blind. 

So, are we putting our best teachers in our schools? 

For a broader perspective, let’s examine the Singapore story. Both Singapore and Malaysia had the same starting point in 1965. These days, Singapore’s schools are recognised as some of world’s top performers, excelling in maths, science and literacy.

When asked how they achieved this, their answer is simple – “a coherent curriculum delivered to every school by high-quality teachers.”  

“The kind of nation we want to create depends upon the schools we create,” said Dr Azly Rahman, an academic, educationalist and author. 

So, if our education system today is driven by division instead of unity and integration, then this is the direction that our policies have taken us. 

Our national schools were once the preferred schools. In the past, private schools were regarded as the alternative for those who had failed to make the cut in the national school system. 

Today, however, national schools have slowly evolved to be perceived as ‘inferior’ – the result of all the ‘good intentions’ of the policies of the New Economic Policy (NEP), initiated in the 1970s and later through its subsequent derivatives.

The road to hell is always paved with good intentions. 

These policies, including that of ‘ketuanan Melayu’ (ethnic Malay supremacy), have far outrun their course. They have now, wilfully or not, affected the quality of our schools and our teachers. 

Our schools are the seedbed where we design the shape, the intensity, the tone and the pitch of the nation’s future. 

Perhaps it is time for the MoE to go beyond the political smokescreen and the politicians’ rhetoric. The ministry needs to take a good hard look at the stories we can each tell. 

During my years as a teacher, I had to teach qualified geography teachers how to use the scale on a map.

I had to explain to English-language teachers the difference between the word ‘to’ as a preposition and ‘to’ as the infinitive form of a verb. 

I had to correct flawed marking schemes for school exams. I listened to complaints from students about their teacher’s errors in marking their papers.

I witnessed teachers who were unable to cope with the academic excellence of their own students whose comprehension of the subject far surpassed their teachers’.

Once, when they still had external oral English examiners, I was sent with another teacher to a school to conduct the SPM (Year 11) oral English exams.

One candidate at the school was asked what her plans were after the SPM exams were over.

“I will let down my hair and paint the town red,” she said. 

Without hesitation, I gave her full marks.

However, my partner gave the student a flat zero! When I asked her why, she said that the candidate’s answer made no sense to her! 

Are we being fair to our candidates and students when we have teachers and examiners who lack expertise in their own disciplines? Never mind the complexities of pedagogy and meaningful engagement.

In the decade after I left, I imagine the situation in schools must have worsened. Many parents are now opting for expensive international schools or vernacular schools instead of national schools for their children.

Schools should be learning organisations that inspire intellectual growth. They are certainly not the place to be educating teachers about their own disciplines.

So, are we surprised we have dropped out of the international Pisa rankings for maths, reading and science? Are we surprised when vernacular schools and international schools have become more popular? 

The future is uncertain. It is time our leaders realised that the competition is not from people of other ethnicities within Malaysia but from our Asean neighbours, who may soon leave us trailing far behind.

While we are still smouldering in our fifty-year-old psychosis over race and identity politics, there are darker uncertainties looming over us. 

How prepared are we in managing a digitally enhanced world or living within the metaverse? How prepared are we for AI?

Sukeshini Nair
Co-editor, Aliran newsletter
20 August 2024

The views expressed in Aliran's media statements and the NGO statements we have endorsed reflect Aliran's official stand. Views and opinions expressed in other pieces published here do not necessarily reflect Aliran's official position.

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