A Malaysian school

BY Kazi Mahmood, IOL South East Asia Correspondent

KUALA LUMPUR, January 25  (IslamOnline) - Muslims in Malaysia are forking out more than ever in educating their children with rising costs of books, accessories and fees in local schools and universities, forcing them to ponder on changes in their life style in the fast progressing country.

The writing off of government subsidies in the Sekolah Agama Rakyat (SAR) or privately owned Islamic institutions by the government last year is only the tip of the ice berg of what the Malay-Muslims in Malaysia are facing in the education sector.

The end of reign of Mahathir Mohamad, a Muslim Prime Minister of mix Malay-Indian origin, does not spell good for most Malays, a student applying for a seat at the University Islam Antarabangsa (UIA) said to IslamOnline on Wednesday, January 15, 2003.

Universities have started to impose higher fees on Malays, who are normally granted automatic seats in local Universities with a package of financial help that has been in existence for the past 30 years since the inception of the Affirmative Economic Policy.

The policy was devised to assist the Bumiputeras (Sons of the Land), who are considered aborigines. Since last year, the government has changed the rules and are trying to adjust the assistance to Malaysians instead of only the Malays.

This in the name of meritocracy, financial help though still existent is thinning and more seats are now allocated to non-Malays giving a fairer chance to Chinese, Indians and other races who say they have been ostracized for too long.

However, many in the opposition camp and mostly in the Party Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) say education is a must for the people and that meritocracy will bring good to the Malays in particular, though they agree the cost of education will take a toll on the Malays.

In the past the Malays in particular did not have to pay fees to enter Universities in the country, unless a nominal entry fee were being charged. Nowadays things have changed completely and scholarships are not automatic anymore.

Most of the Malay families facing the fact that their children are to go to Universities this year said they are not able to cope with the high cost of education.

"Commercialization of education services is a trend now in Malaysia. This is thanks to the privatization policies underway. However it is funny to see that private religious Islamic schools are on the contrary, being nationalized...," Mustafa, who works for a government agency in Petaling Jaya said.

He added that two of his daughters will be admitted to university this year while his youngest son was due to go to a privately owned Islamic school. He had to revise his son's plans and sent him instead to a government school.

"The current trend will not help the Malay Muslims in this country. We still need subsidies in education and the government should not just eliminate such subsidies, this is unfair," said Monirah a mother of three who has to work long hours to save money and put her children in schools.

"In the long run, the new education policies will bring disaster to the nation since it is ruining the Malays," another father who has to spend a chunk of his salary this January to send his two boys to higher learning institutes.

"Basic education should be free while higher learning must be subsidized by the government still, it should not be privatized to that extent," Abu Zamri added.

"The system of education, the universities were engineered by educationist of the past, this should not have changed for the worst," he said.

Insisting that health and education are part of the social contract the government has with the population, another mother and teacher at a private girls school in Kuala Lumpur said the government will have to revert to subsidies in the long run.

"When they see the effects on the Malays, they will go back to the reality of subsidies, but it is up to the Muslims now to fight for that," Zaleha told IslamOnline.

Subsidies have helped many Malays become professionals and intellectuals while it has also been abused by richer families who sent their children to local universities and who enjoyed the scholarships granted to Malays for higher learning abroad.

"They should use meritocracy to such an extent that only the poor and needy are offered subsidies.

"It is going to be difficult but that should be done, instead of across the board help to rich and poor in education," Zaleha added.  

Badawi says Malaysia Will Disintegrate If Racism Persists

Meanwhile, Malaysia deputy prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Saturday, January 25, that Malaysia faces Yugoslavia style disintegration if racial polarization persists in the majority Muslim country, separating its various social components on religious and ethnic lines.

There was also the possibility of Malays (majority Muslim group in the country) being divided into two groups due to religious fanaticism and extremism, he said when opening the Penang Umno Education Convention 2003 at Dewan Millennium, Malaysia news agency (Bernama) reported.

The United Malays National Organization (UMNO) is the ruling Malay party in Malaysia and it is facing rising pressure from the Party Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), which is the second largest Malay party in peninsular Malaysia.

Badawi said that the major problem in Malaysia was the small percentage of non-Bumiputeras (non-Malays) enrolling in national schools, which if not handled with care, could further disrupt unity in this country.

He urged Malaysians to accept the national school system to build a united and solid Malaysian nation. An increasingly larger number of Malaysians of non-Malay origins are registered in ethnic schools, such as Chinese or Tamil schools scattered across the country.

The future Prime Minister of Malaysia, Badawi, who will take over from Mahathir Mohamad in October this year, said Malaysia was a multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural society hence it would be healthy if all components of the nation would go to national schools.

Arguing that the country was facing growing disunity problem, he said national schools should aspire at becoming a miniature Malaysia, where all races are admitted.

Non-Muslims have complained that they were not welcomed in national schools, which Mahathir said in one of his interviews to the local Television in December last year, had employed too many Muslim teachers, creating unease among non-Muslims.

Seeds of peace, harmony and mutual respect should be sown at the school level, Badawi added.

The government is gearing towards unifying all the schools in Malaysia under its umbrella, giving out lesser subsidies or writing off such subsidies to religious based private schools.

Muslims felt targeted when Mahathir announced in November last year that local private Islamic schools would not be granted any subsidies as from the year 2003.

This caused a barrage of accusation against the government, with the opposition PAS claiming that the authorities were aiming at punishing the Malays for not supporting the current regime.

Several such schools have since then closed doors, leaving many needy children stranded, Hamsiah, a teacher at one of the schools that stopped operation this year told IslamOnline.

Hamsiah did not want to reveal the name of the school fearing she might lose the job she just secured in a government school this January.

She said the Malaysians did not have enough confidence in the National schools not “because the Muslims had hijacked the national schools, but because national schools did not have proper “Tamil” or “Chinese” language classes.”

Badawi said the confidence of all Malaysians in national schools should be restored and enhanced. He added that the schools themselves should practice a teaching system that would produce excellent results.

National schools should reflect the actual and true Malaysian society and co-curricular activities should symbolize the lives of Malaysians of various religions, cultures and race, Badawi said at the press conference.

"Education is an investment to ensure a bright future for the young generation."

"It should not be politicized as this will be a most irresponsible act and will only destroy the future of innocent children," he said.