Goal of Malaysian education is to divide us

 

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

- Robert Frost

Setiawangsa MP Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said, “Ultimately, education is the great equaliser… If education is discriminatory in gender or race, then you are killing off the power of education to equalise society”.

See this is the problem right here. How can anyone talk about improving the education system in a country where the rights and special privileges of one race trump anything else?

If the state is worried about how the school system is becoming mono-ethnic, then perhaps this has to do with the birth rate of the majority race here in Malaysia and how the state and religious bureaucracy discourages family planning because demographic is destiny, right?

But really, how exactly are young people going to forget their differences and forge any kind of "Malaysian" identity when they are constantly reminded that they are either the masters of this land (and their position is under siege) or they are pendatang?

How exactly is an education ministry headed by anyone believing in Malay special rights going to formulate an education policy which creates citizens who may be able to get employment but who will never think of themselves as equal citizens of this country?

Beyond that, the Arabisation and Islamisation processes with the aid of propaganda institutions like Biro Tata Negara (BTN) have created a generation of civil servants who believe that race and religion are first principles and therefore their role in government is to facilitate those principles.

A couple of years back, Pahang Umno objected to people politicising the fact that a school in Kuantan forced non-Muslim students to stay in school until after Muslim prayers were carried out. All this was justified on the grounds that non-Muslim students could learn about Islam. This was just an overt way to demand compliance.

And forget about the urban-educated opposition polities. When it comes to education, in the ketuanan system, it is more about class than race.

Mainstream Malaysian politics is predicated on sustaining a jingoistic, nationalist but permanently underprivileged Malay base.

When politicos talk of rural folks, you have to understand that these are rural folks by design.

While rich and middle-income Malays ensure that their children receive an education that would make them competitive in this fast-changing geopolitical landscape, the system is designed to keep “rural” Malays and working-class Malays bereft of the opportunities available to that class of Malays who control or who serve a political system that enables their privilege.

Of course, the kind of class that this system of education engineers makes them perfect as petty mid-level bureaucrats or working-class drones, steeped in religion and racial grievances, using the system at the behest of their political masters always hoping to jump to the next level using corrupt means. A new serf class created post-May 1969.

Then, of course, we can talk about how non-Malays are marginalised in state institutions and then demonised for not wanting to participate in the system, preferring the private sectors riddled with racialism and bigotry of its own.

Going back to basics

What we are dealing with here and I know Nik Nazmi understands this, is political hegemony through race and religion, which is transmitted through the education system.

Look, even a subject like history, for example, is modified to fit ethnocentric narratives and submerge the contribution of non-Malay/Muslim citizens of this country.

And history is important. Our shared history and subaltern narratives bind young people together and this is the last thing the state wants.

Sure, pablum and political bromides by the establishment and the opposition feel good but the reality is that shared history binds young people together like the language of science and math.

This is why teaching science and math in English is always a political and religious flash point.

Learning science and math in English, the perceived danger is of course that people will move beyond just science and math and start engaging on a whole other level.

This is why race hustlers and religious zealots despise such “Western” concepts and the political apparatus of this country - establishment and opposition - seek to profit from divisions in their own ways and never really attempt to correct the systemic imbalances that have produced a generation of young people who are either mired in religiosity or apathetic to the future which is their birthright.

Academic types have offered a plethora of reforms for our education system but I am a simple man.

Colonialism left us with a pretty decent education system before religious and racial politics infected the system.

So to me, it is going back to basics with modulations that take into account contemporary realities that changing geopolitical landscapes and economic markets necessitate.

Meanwhile, a quota system for public universities has created a generation of young people who are resentful of each other because one side benefits from a sub-standard education while the other has to scrimp and save for a better education system which creates a private sector which is a reflection of the grievances of the public sector.

And while I get this was just an education forum where people just throw out talking points but if Pakatan Harapan really had any intention of reforming the education system, they would be putting out talking points to demonstrate such instead of just blaming the system they are a part of.

I have a feeling though that the only thing Harapan will do is create or extend more entitlement programmes when it comes to the education system while giving more cash to vernacular schools in some sort of misguided attempt at parity.

This is exactly what defines mainstream Malaysian political ideology, the racial trade-off to sustain political hegemony.

This remains the state of play. - Mkini

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT