Malay kids in Chinese schools

Wong Chin Huat

Ironically, the empirical success of Chinese-medium schools in attracting non-Chinese kids (presumably non-native speakers), who now make up 13% of their student enrolment nationwide, is their discursive Achilles’ heel – what mother tongue are we talking about here?

Having more Malay kids, especially in Chinese-medium schools, is in fact a very interesting phenomenon that can potentially be inconvenient for everyone and make everyone uncomfortable.

Defeating the segregation argument

First of all, it would defeat the standard argument against Chinese-medium schools that they are actually ethnically-exclusive – rather than just linguistically-specialising – and that they segregate the population.

What segregation are we talking here if you walk into a school in Sabah where the majority of the kids are Kadazan, Dusun, Sulu, Bajau and Malay but they are learning in Chinese? Are we saying that because they speak Chinese, they are segregated from their ethnic cousins and other Malaysians who learn in Malay?

In the peninsula, which is the most ethnically divided part of Malaysia, if Malay-medium schools cannot attract Chinese kids, wouldn’t it be a good thing if Chinese-medium schools could attract Malay kids? If a class learning in Chinese consists of 50% Chinese kids and 50% Malay kids, what threat does it pose to national unity?

This phenomenon makes it clear that if there is still objection to such “integrated” Chinese-medium schools, the objection is not based on ethnic segregation, but monolingualism, the very reason why the more ethnically-integrated English-medium schools were eliminated in the 1970s.

The argument for monolingualism can be a legitimate position but it is certainly not the same as the argument for national integration. However, in the official discourse, these two are merged into one.

The emergence of “ethnically-integrated” Chinese-medium schools hence forces honesty in policy debates, which may make some advocates of monostream education very unhappy.

Defying the logic of mother tongue education

This phenomenon, however, also inconveniences and frustrates many supporters of Chinese-medium schools.

For some, Chinese-medium schools are indeed meant to be an ethnic marker, enabling the Chinese to stay united against the encroachment of Malay nationalists. An ethnically-mixed population hence by definition dilutes the character of Chinese schools.

The most insecure ones are even concerned that the Chinese may lose their linguistic edge at workplace if everyone else now also speaks Chinese – ironically, they are in full agreement on this with those who want Malay to be the only common language spoken.

Then, you have others who are worried that the rise of Muslim enrolments in Chinese schools would affect their “secular” nature. Not only would special arrangements need to be made for religious classes, cafeterias may need to become “halal”. And interestingly, one reason for many non-Muslim bumiputera parents in Sabah to prefer Chinese-medium schools seems to be avoiding Islamisation and the threat of religious conversion in the Malay-medium “national” schools.

The most important challenge it poses to the Chinese education movement is, however, its direct defiance or even negation of the mother tongue education argument, its raison d’etre.

The more ethnically integrated the Chinese schools are, the less legitimate the accusation of segregation, but also the less forceful the case for mother tongue education.

In reality, many non-Chinese kids do not do well in Chinese schools. They speak little Chinese after six years of primary education. Their failure – much like the failure of many minority kids in Malay-medium schools – is testimony to the benefits of mother tongue education.

So, what should the Chinese-medium schools do? To be consistent with their raison d’etre, should they tell non-Chinese parents to send their kids somewhere else and be accused of ethnically segregating the population?

Need and/or choice?

This actually points to the fundamental question in the policy debate on education: need and choice.

The mother tongue education discourse as articulated by the Chinese education movement now is purely a “need argument”. It rules out choices. It assumes that because everyone may need mother tongue education, everyone will or must choose mother tongue education.

In its current form, the mother tongue education discourse is, deep down, “one-size-fits-all”. It does not ask whether everyone needs mother tongue education equally. It ignores the empirical question of variance: after which stage – pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary – will an individual’s need for mother tongue education cease?

In that sense, the Chinese education movement is unwittingly yet strikingly similar to their discursive opponents in the Ministry of Education. The ministry’s aims in national identity and national integration are also “need arguments”, albeit the needs of the state rather than of individuals. The point is: both sides don’t believe in choices.

For the Chinese education movement, if you are an ethnic Chinese, then you should be in a Chinese-medium national-type school because your mother tongue is Chinese. Your mother tongue defines your life and destiny. Period.

For the Ministry of Education, if you are a Malaysian, then you should be in a Malay-medium national school, because your national language is Malay. Your government policy defines your life and destiny. Period.

First language or ethnic tongue?

This leads to why, coming to medium of instruction, our education system as a whole is flawed: everyone is assumed to be a native speaker, or at least, the schools are built to cater for native speakers.

Not only Chinese-medium schools are designed for Chinese native-speakers. Malay-medium schools are also designed for Malay native-speakers, as there is no built-in second-language support for non-native speakers.

Support for non-native speaking students is not the same as the teaching of minority languages. The former is about overcoming learning difficulties because of language barriers while the latter is about learning more languages.

This is where, again, two different although related issues are mistaken for one.

Mother tongue can mean two things: first, cradle tongue/home language/first language, which facilitates students’ learning better than other languages do; second, ethnic tongue, which informs and affirms one’s cultural identity.

The mother tongue education argument is primarily based on the first language advantage, while teaching minority languages as a singular subject is about preserving ethnic tongues.

The so-called “Singapore model” – a single-stream education with minority languages offered as single subjects – advocated by many single-streamers actually only responds to the ethnic tongue concern.

The non-native speaker disadvantage is simply accepted or dismissed as a fact of life that deserves no structural support. After all, there are always losers in society.

Deep down in any one-size-fits-all model, it’s the “survival of the fittest” paradigm. It may be a legitimate position but for its advocates to turn around and talk about equality and empowerment elsewhere would be scandalously hypocritical.

Any way out?

So, we are talking about at least three different policy goals here: integration (ethnically-mixed student population), linguistic homogeneity/heterogeneity (a spectrum from strict monolingualism to free-for-all multilingualism) and empowerment through education (first-language advantage as well as personal interests).

What kind of education system would best suit these policy goals? I believe the decisions should be made by parents and students, not by community elders, politicians and bureaucrats. After all, the parents and students are the one who bear the consequences of these decisions.

Policies and structures should be built surrounding the choices of parents and students, to facilitate the attainment of the desirable outcomes such as personal flourishing and to prevent the negative ones such as segregation.

The most important tasks then are affirming mother tongue education and simultaneously introducing effective support for non-native speakers in any types of schools, minimising the cost of and constraint to opt for non-mother tongue education.

When choices are maximised, while we will be free to embrace our first language, our destiny will not be defined by it.