Of temple attack, black shoes, iPad and the future of schooling

I am both saddened and hopeful of the future of the Malaysian education system. Saddened by the fact that the incident of the temple “fracas” not only reflects the May 13, 1969 syndrome we are still in, but also the dangerous tipping points of race relations and religious complexity we are plagued with.

The planned Dec 8 anti-Icerd “victory” rally by the coalition-of-desperation of PAS-Umno members under the ill-defined umbrella of the “ummah” is, in short, troubling and symptomatic of the schools we have built.

We hear of the Ministry of Education planning this or that: sending circulars on black shoes, black socks, and using Islamic values as instructional strategies to be used on children and students of multi-religious backgrounds.

And, in a show of symbolism and attunement to the Digital Age and the IoT (Internet of Things), all children are be provided with iPads so that they could use digital books instead of carrying those heavy, printed ones.

But we are not sure what the plan is to have teachers and students use digitally-driven-constructivism based-critically-thinking enhanced practices in teaching, thinking, and learning.

Remember the “smart schools” slogan of the 1990s? Remember the promise to turn each of the 10,000 schools into “smart schools” under the Mahathir administration?

In 1998, the Education Ministry stated that schools would also have Olympic-sized swimming pools. Schools then were supposed to prepare the young to be citizens of this utopia called the Multimedia Super Corridor.

And today, we hear that iPads will be supplied but we do not know who is the vendor and that schools are to teach swimming, so that not only will children be digitally-enhanced and technologically-driven but also be able to swim ashore when the tide of globalisation threatens to drown us.

Now the news about the temple riot. Realistically, we need to critically examine why the riot occurred, and why it was seen as a prelude to a race riot, ala May 13, 1969.

The point of this essay - written in anger - of why we are still a racist nation, and how we are to start thinking that nobody owns this land except Malaysians who are legal residents who toil for the nation, is to say that we are failing in this enterprise called “schooling”.

We have created 10 types of schools that need to be restructured big time, in the name of sustainability, human rights, peace and justice.

How is this so, and what does it say about the state of educational evolution and crisis of cultural degeneration Malaysia is in? For the world to understand how this hyper-modern society has evolved and how its people are schooled for social reproduction, one must understand the types of schools that have come into being

10 types of schools

Since independence, and as a legacy of British colonialism of divide and conquer as well as following the mould of Americanism, Malaysia has developed 10 types of schools:

1) Power schools. These are international schools meant for the rich and powerful who will compete and collaborate with children of expatriates and who will be academically better than the children of the poor and of the locals.

2) Private schools. They are very expensive "breakaway schools" meant to save children from poor teaching and overcrowded classrooms.

3) Privileged schools. These are well-funded boarding schools built to safeguard racial privileges and to instil Ketuanan Melayu (the “self-proclaimed sense of superiority of the Malays”) in the children who did well in their kampung schools, and to groom them so that they will become leaders who will protect the rights of their race.

4) Parachial schools. These are schools that sustain the transmission of this or that culture based on the perceived superiority of this or that language, culture, and religion, so that the children will not be washed away by the tide of cultural change.

5) Public schools. These are government schools that sustain the ideology of the ruling regime, and train the children to be nationalistic and patriotic. They are used as a training ground for children to participate in nation-building so that they will grow up as defenders of the state.

6) 'Proof-of-concept' schools. These are well-funded government schools that are seen as a showcase of innovations and good management, and authentic assessment and evaluation. This is to show that these selected schools can be saved from the failing public schools, and that a failing policy can be saved by a successful showcase of "smart ways to schooling".

7) Pondon-preacher schools. These are tahfiz schools - registered and unregistered - that could be an easy channel of influence to reproduce Talibans and religiously intolerant human beings, or worse, to become cadres and sympathisers of the Islamic State.

8) Post-schools-schools. These are tuition centres in the billion-ringgit tuition industry.

9) Pathetic schools. These are schools that beg for money from the government to even fix a roof or a toilet and are meant for those children whose parents did not go to any of the above schools.

10) Papa-mama-schools or homeschooling. These are managed by parents who do not have faith in any of the schools above and do not wish their children to befriend bad boys and bad girls in schools.

Which of those above do Malaysians wish their child to be schooled in? Herein lies my hope for a better way to chart our future before Malaysia becomes yet another failed state such as Somalia, Syria, South Sudan, El Salvador, or any of those which started well but race and religious extremism, class evolution, and modern imperialism tore them apart.

What next?

We have yet to know how the Education Ministry proposes to create a truly Malaysian schooling system - from kindergartens to schools - that envisions a common destiny that is inclusive, creative, altruistic, futuristic and that will treat each and every Malaysian child, regardless of race and religion, as human beings.

This is the challenge we face in yet another difficult period in which the ghosts of May 13, 1969 are evoked to be used to destroy this beautiful country.

The solution lies in schooling, the only means for a sustainable personal, social, cultural, and technological progress.

Dare we create new schools to create a greater and more peaceful Malaysian society - beyond temple riots, black shoes-white socks, and promise of iPads and swimming pools?

What must be our first step? And what do we really want from the current regime?

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AZLY RAHMAN is an educator, academic, international columnist, and author of seven books available here. He grew up in Johor Bahru and holds a Columbia University doctorate in international education development and Master’s degrees in six areas: education, international affairs, peace studies communication, fiction and non-fiction writing. Twitter @azlyrahman. More writings here. -Mkini