By Santhosh Gunaseelan,
The issue of Tamil schools often dominates Malaysian Indian political
discussion. Both major coalitions have made promises to improve to
standard of Tamil schools and both have been criticised for not doing
enough for Tamil schools.
However, I believe the poor
standard of Tamil schools in Malaysia is not the source of
socio-economic backwardness in the Indian community but rather a symptom
of a much larger problem.
There is widespread educational
dysfunction among young Malaysian Indians in both Tamil schools and
national schools and I believe this is why the majority of Indians
continue to live in the shackles of generational poverty and all the ill
effects it brings.
There are 523 Tamil schools
in the country with a total enrolment of over 100,000. It is an open
secret that Tamil school pupils perform much poorly than their national
school and Chinese school counterparts.
There are some who
believe the standard of Tamil schools can be remedied through increasing
funding and improving school facilities.
However, I would like to question the very relevance of the Tamil school system in 21st century Malaysia.
Apart
from having a standard that is lower than other schools, Tamil schools
limit opportunities for Indian students from Tamil-speaking households
to be highly proficient in English or BM.
I believe if a
child is raised in a household that only speaks Tamil, it is in the best
interest of the child to attend a school where the medium of
instruction is BM or English, so that they can effectively master all
three languages or at least two of them.
Tamil school alumni
struggle in secondary schools partly because of their poor grasp of BM.
It is no surprise that 80 percent of Tamil school pupils do not pursue
post-secondary education.
Tamil schools cannot be
seen as equivalent to Chinese schools. Pupils from Chinese primary
schools also generally have trouble with proficiency in BM.
However,
most Chinese primary schools pupils who proceed to national secondary
schools do well because Chinese primary schools have a rigorous science
and mathematics curricula that is highest in standard among all types of
schools.
The Chinese students who do struggle in national
secondary schools due to low proficiency in BM and English, still manage
to be financially successful due to the far-reaching influence of
Mandarin in the business world.
In contrast, an Indian in
Malaysia with limited knowledge of BM and English will find his or her
economic opportunities severely restricted. That is the sad reality
faced by hundreds of thousands of Indian youths today.
So
does this mean Indian children will be guaranteed of a better future if
they enrol in national primary schools? The answer is no. Let me share
my own experience of being an Indian kid in a national primary school. I
was raised in an English-speaking middle class family.
My parents took my education very seriously and sent me to tuition.
I
was able to do very well in school. Unfortunately, many working-class
Indian pupils in my national school struggled with their studies.
They
did not have access to the sophisticated education material I had, they
did not speak English at home and they did not have the kind of
parental support I had.
They could not master BM to a
satisfactory level despite being in a national primary school because
they did not speak the language at home, they had no connection to the
Malay mass media and they could not afford private tuition.
However, their BM was generally better than that of Tamil school pupils.
Many
of these underperforming Indian pupils were relegated to the so-called
''last class'' as early as Standard Two and they did not improve over
the years as the expectations placed on them were low. Some of them
followed me to the same secondary school.
They were still
reading and writing at Standard Three level despite being in Form Five.
They were functionally illiterate and could not even read the textbooks
properly.
However the proportion of Indian students in this
predicament was much lower among national primary school leavers than
Tamil school leavers.
Many of these ''last
class'' boys were involved with disciplinary problems and had gang
connections. They were perfect candidates for recruitment into gangs.
The gangs provided them with a sense of power and control in a world in which they felt powerless and out of control.
As
the country progressed, young working-class Indians felt like they were
living under a glass ceiling. They could see wealth and success all
around them but could not be part of it.
It is easy to judge
these people by saying they had the tools to succeed but did not use
it. But I feel they did not really have the right tools in the first
place.
While I do not condone their bad choices, I believe
they were enrolled in a 'one size fits all' education system that simply
could not address their unique needs and weaknesses.
They were left behind.
Older
generations of Indians managed to leave the misery of estate poverty
for greener pastures because English-medium education opened doors for
them.
They may have had parents who never spoke English but
because of the far-reaching influence of the English media (books,
magazines etc.), they managed to pick up the language very well.
It opened opportunities for them in higher education and employment.
With the current education system, the working-class Indian's chances of social mobility have become somewhat foggy.
They
have become trapped in a system that does not address the unique
challenges they face and they are distracted by a destructive gang
culture that evolved out of the insecurity of urban poverty.
Therefore,
I believe asking or begging for more funding and land for Tamil schools
would not necessarily give Indians a brighter future.
The
politics of Tamil schools is a mere distraction from the larger problem
which is the prevalence of functional illiteracy and learning
difficulties among working-class Indians.
Children
from poor Indian families and all other disadvantaged groups in
Malaysia need access to special programmes to enable them to read and
write in English and BM at a level appropriate for their age.
We have an education system that favours the strong and ignores the needs of the weak. I would propose the following solutions:
-
A programme based on the ''Teach for America'' model where university
graduates from various fields spend two years as temporary teachers in
an underperforming school. The graduates could receive training while
they are still in university through a ''Teach for Malaysia'' club.
-
The government should fund an after-school programme that would help
students of all races who are left behind in the education system
through creative learning methods.
-
More Indian men should join the teaching force to serve as role models
to Indian boys who are at the highest risk of being involved in crime of
all demographic groups in the country.
-
More Indian men should be encouraged to join the police force to
counter the influence of criminal gangs in the Indian community.
-
Empower ignorant Indian families by educating them on how they can help
their children perform well in school and stay clear of criminal
activities.
The Indian NGOs need to stop raising up
the begging bowl to the government and should instead work to translate
their activism into concrete social justice programmes that would
improve the socio-economic status of the Indian community.
They
should leave the politics to the political parties and focus their
efforts into helping Indian students who are left behind in the
education system who lack much-needed counsel and guidance.
At
the same time, all Malaysians need to empathise with the bleakness
faced by Indian youths rather than dismissing it as an ''Indian
problem''.
Eli Wiesel said ''the opposite of hate is not
love but indifference''. A crime-ridden and marginalised Indian
community that is left alone to disintegrate will only be a burden for
the entire country.
PETALING
JAYA: Sisters in Islam (SIS) menolak cadangan berkenaan Kelab Isteri
Taat (OWC) yang mahukan isteri melayan suami seperti pelacur kelas
pertama.
