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Zaid: ‘Arabic’ schools driving non-Malays to vernacular education

The Malay Mail Online – Wed, Aug 21, 2013

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 21 — The dominance of religion within the national school system
is why non-Malays are increasingly removing their children from the environment, said
former Umno minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim. Taking to Twitter to voice his comments, the
prominent lawyer asserted that Chinese parents shun national schools because these have
turned “Arabic”.

”Majority of Chinese will send children to national school if it’s national and not Arabic.”Not
a place for indoctrination or teaching [ideology],” he tweeted. “It’s a place of learning how to
read and write; a place to think and develop ideas.”

The former law minister told The Malay Mail Online that national schools should instead be
revamped in order to improve the quality of education, adding that other avenues existed to
teach religion. ”[There are other alternatives] such as religious classes, parents teaching their
children, but you cannot use the national school system that would be at the expense of
something else,” he said in a recent phone interview.

Vernacular schools continue to grow in popularity here in Malaysia, with an increasing

number of non-Malay parents preferring to send their children to Mandarin- and Tamil-
language schools over the Malay-language national schools. But critics of vernacular schools
contend that the racial segregation arising from their growth is hampering efforts to foster
national unity, and have called for the system to be discontinued in favour of a unified school
system.

Zaid defended the existence of vernacular schools and suggested that their popularity would
wane if parents could be convinced that the national education system is capable of producing
quality talent. But such effort would be undermined if religion continues to be foisted on
students. ”I accept vernacular schools under our system but I think if you make national
schools, an excellent school system, I’m sure parents, Chinese or otherwise will choose to
send their children to national schools. ”The problem now is that you have groups of people,
especially those with religious backgrounds and strong religious belief, they want to see [the
religious elements in the] education system,” he said.

Aside from parents opting for vernacular schools, Malaysia is also witnessing the growing
popularity of international schools since the sector was deregulated. According to
Pemandu’s Economic Transformation Plan 2012 annual report, there are now 81 international
schools in Malaysia, with 29 more granted licences. More than 33,000 students are currently
enrolled and an estimated 75,000, by 2020.