Off and on, the Sun
provides some really thought-provoking pieces such as this
latest nugget from Halimah Mohd Said on reviving the Vision School concept.
Among others, she said: “We are too far gone into vernacular education to realise after more than half a century that it has not served national unity and integration well.”
Halimah (Datin?) is
worried over growing divisiveness of a national education system trying to
accommodate three different streams replete with their very own linguistic and
cultural exclusiveness.
(Digressing a bit but perhaps
she should also include a fourth stream which has come out strongly over the
last few years in the form of the sekolah pondok type of schools, some of which
feature integrated syllabus, and offering far more exclusivity than even the
vernacular schools can profess to offer.)
I echo Halimah’s thoughts
in the urgent need to bring the diverging schools system together and for the
time being, it does look that the Vision School concept is the most viable
solution we have.
It is important for the
children to be allowed to open up and learn the hotch potch in race, religion
and culture “real time” rather than what they could theoretically gain from
books.
In book form, such
differences can come out very cold and technical. Boring is an apt phrase to be
used.
Worse still, things come
out all black and white with no grayscale allowed perpetuating an “Us and Them”
mentality right from the start.
You’d have to wonder why
the concept never did gain the kind of wide acceptance and strong political
support it should rightly garner given the national unity objective that it
carries.
I would venture that the
main problem lie with our inability to do away with the racial distinctions of
being Chinese, Ibans, Indians, Malays, Muruts, Sikhs etc etc etc instead of
identifying ourselves first and foremost as Malaysians.
50 plus years of
independence and we still identify our schools on the basis of their purported
main language of use: Malay, Chinese and Tamil.
Throw into the mix with
the newer streams in Sekolah Tahfiz – with its predominant Islamic-based
syllabus – and the elitist community based International schools – predominant
English speaking - and we have a potent divisive foundation on racial,
linguistic and class lines all set up for the future.
Is this the kind of future
we are offering our kids?
It is time that the
education reformists take the Vision School concept a step further than the
mere sharing of grounds, facilities and resources.
No: the Vision School
should be a sharing of ideals and principles.
Not “You”, not “Me”, but
“We” as in “We” are in this together.
And the government should not
be put off by the wholly Malaysians’ Malaysia philosophy behind this.
For God’s sakes, can we
chuck racial politics out the window for once?
God knows the haste in the need to set
up the correct foundation before we all go down six feet under and leaving our legacy
of a divisive education system for decades to come.
