ADUN SPEAKS | Vernacular schools in the country are facing many challenges. Here I am referring to Chinese and Tamil schools that are popular in their respective ethnic communities rather than the national schools.

The education system in Malaysia gives an impression that vernacular schools are at odds with the national schools.

The answer is yes and no.

Parents have a choice to send their children to either vernacular schools or to national schools at the primary level.

After spending six years of primary school, students can make the transition to secondary national schools.

In a way, it can be said that primary vernacular schools complement the national schools.

The competition between them is only at the primary level.

There is another option. Financially better-off families can also send their children to international schools where they can choose the curriculum to be pursued.

The formal establishment of the vernacular came as the result of a political bargain between the major races in the country just before political independence.

A consociational arrangement of a sort provided for the acceptance of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language and the use of languages such as Mandarin and Tamil in schools.

The existence of vernacular schools was fraught with political and ethnic tensions from the beginning. Competing ethnic nationalisms not only strengthened vernacular schools but also called for their removal.

The calls from certain sections of society to bring together the three different types of school systems into a single national system did not materialise.

Asking for a single system of education only managed to speed up ethnic or language nationalism that served to strengthen the vernacular schools.

As national schools came to be identified with interests of Malays and their religion, the fervour for vernacular schools increased from their respective communities.

As it stands, the majority of school-going children from Chinese and Indian communities go to vernacular schools.

However, I have been informed that about 18 to 20 percent of students in Chinese vernacular schools are from the Malay community.

Malay parents are sending their children to Chinese schools to acquire knowledge of Mandarin and skills in science subjects.

It is obvious that ethnic nationalism takes a back seat when parents decide to send children to schools that can provide good and sound education.

While vernacular schools might have a slight edge in quality over national schools, there are some serious challenges to the continuation of the former.

The arguments that...