Former PIBG chair: Vision Schools don't help promote unity

The Vision School project, which was launched in 2003, is often mentioned in the discourse on single-stream education.

An idea mooted by Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his first round as prime minister, the pilot project was meant to foster closer relationships between students of primary vernacular schools and national schools.

This would be achieved by making selected vernacular and national schools share the same complex and infrastructure, like fields and canteens, with teaching and administration remaining separate.

However, a former parent-teacher association chairperson at one Vision School believes that the objective of promoting unity is only superficial.

“The name is Vision School, but actually everything was done separately. Children’s Day, Teachers Day and Sports Day was done separately.

“Sports Day was only held jointly between the schools for two years, but the events were made to be a competition between the schools, instead of combining Malay, Chinese and Indian students into teams.

“So, where is the unity?” asked S Murali, who chaired the SJK(T) Tun Sambanthan PIBG from 2005 to 2012.

SJK(T) Tun Sambanthan is one of three schools in the USJ15 Vision School complex in Subang Jaya. The other schools are SJK(C) Tun Tan Cheng Lock and SK Dato Onn Jaafar, all of which still operate within the complex.

Among the challenges faced by the USJ15 Vision School in meeting its objective when Murali was PIBG chairperson was the reluctance by schools to create more opportunities for interaction, he said.

He said his proposal to conduct joint co-curriculum activities was rejected by the schools.

“So Malay students don’t sit with Indian students, Indians don’t sit with the Chinese, the Chinese are not making friends with the Malays and vice versa. So whose fault is it?”

There were also logistical challenges, he said, like the school infrastructure mostly only being managed by the principal of SK Dato Onn.

“Even though, according to policy, each school should have access to the school hall, most of the time the national school would not give space to other schools to conduct programmes.

“I personally lodged many complaints to the district Education Department, but no action was taken,” he said.

Besides USJ15, other Vision School complexes were created in Parit Buntar, Alor Setar, Tasik Permai, and Seri Manjung.

The USJ15 Vision School complex is unique because it is the only one containing an SJK(C).

Other SJK(C) pulled out because their administration feared the impact of the project on the Chinese school identity.

Recently, Vision Schools were mentioned by Mahathir as proof that Chinese education group United Chinese School Committees' Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong) is racist in rejecting Jawi lessons for the Standard Four Bahasa Malaysia subject.

Dong Zong had in 2003 said it rejected the Vision School concept because it changes the identity of Chinese schools and could lead to the assimilation of SJK(C) into the mainstream system. - Mkini