The history of modern Chinese schools in Peninsular Malaysia is a story of conflicts between Chinese domiciled there and different governments that happened or happen to rule the land. Before the days of the Pacific War, the British found the Chinese schools troublesome because of their pro-China political activities. They established measures to control them. When the Japanese ruled the Malay Peninsula, they closed down all the Chinese schools. After the Pacific War, for a decade, the British sought to convert the Chinese schools into English schools. The Chinese schools decoupled themselves from China and survived. A Malay-dominated government of independent Peninsular Malaysia allowed Chinese primary schools to continue, but finally changed many Chinese secondary schools into National Type Secondary Schools using Malay as the main medium of instruction. Those that remained independent, along with Chinese colleges, continued without government assistance. The Chinese community today continues to safeguard its educational institutions to ensure they survive.

Chinese education in Malaysia has come a long way since the nineteenth century. The Chinese had brought their traditional mode of education to Malaya, which was modernised following new political developments in China. The postcolonial period saw the restructuring of education, which resulted in the acceptance of Chinese primary schools into the national educational system and the conversion of Chinese secondary schools to national-medium schools. Despite this, the development of these schools, especially the Chinese primary schools, has not been fully supported by the government and there are also measures that could lead to a change in their character. Meanwhile, the development of Independent Chinese Secondary Schools has been lacklustre and it was only in the early 2000s that they began to show impressive growth. But the strong emergence of international schools beginning in the mid-1990s might pose a threat to this impressive growth. As for the aspirations of the Chinese educationists to establish a Chinese institution of higher learning since the second half of the 1960s, their efforts were blocked by the government until the 1990s when they managed to establish a private college to create a complete system of Chinese education in Malaysia. This book is essential reading for anyone hoping to study the development of the Malaysian Chinese education system in greater detail.

This edited volume examines the historical development of Chinese-medium schools from the British colonial era to recent decades of divergent development after the 1965 separation of Singapore and Malaysia. Educational institutions have been a crucial state apparatus in shaping the cultural identity and ideology of ethnic Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia. This volume applies various perspectives from education theory to heritage studies in dealing with the cultural legacy and memory of such schools as situated in larger contexts of society. The book offers comprehensive practice-based analysis and reflection about the complex relationships between language acquisition, identity construction, and state formation from socio-political-cultural perspectives. It covers a broad range of aspects from identities of culture, gender, and religion, to the roles played by the state and the community in various aspects of education such as textbooks, cultural activities, and adult education, as well as the representation of culture in Chinese schools through cultural memory and literature. The readership includes academics, students and members of the public interested in the history and society of the Chinese diaspora, especially in South East Asia. This also appeals to scholars interested in a bilingual or multilingual outlook in education as well as diasporic studies.

Schooling in the ASEAN Region evaluates primary and secondary education in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. The book describes the type of present-day schooling in these countries and, to some extent, their cooperative efforts to pursue common goals. The text discusses the aims of schooling; the structure and process of schooling; and the cooperative education ventures present in the ASEAN region. The book describes the social conditions and government efforts toward developing education in each of the five countries. The text summarizes the historical background of the country as it relates to education, the quality and supply of teachers, the curriculum, administrative structure of the educational system, and some data on school enrollment. The book also notes the problems that are present in the educational system of each country, and the existence of non-formal education in some countries. The book then addresses the education trend and future of education. The last chapter then evaluates the performance and achievements of these five countries toward reaching the goals they had set. The book also lists the challenges that these countries face in the future, such as expanding educational needs, improved quality of learning, effective educational structure, administrative efficiency, teacher supply, and better intercountry cooperation. The text can prove informative for historians, educators, school administrators, government policymakers in education, and education students and professors.

What is the future of Malaysia’s former dominant party, the United Malays National Organisation or UMNO? With the loss of government in the May 2018 General Election (GE14) after 61 years in government, the party faces a different, more uncertain future. It is grappling with its new role in the national political opposition and continued questions about the leadership of former prime minister Najib Tun Razak. This collection is an expanded edition of the original 2016, The End of UMNO? It includes the original five essays (including the foreword by current Foreign Minister in the Pakatan Harapan government and former UMNO Supreme Council member Saifuddin Abdullah), as well as new post-GE14 epilogue essays by each of the contributors – John Funston, Clive Kessler, James Chin and Bridget Welsh, all prominent and established scholars studying Malaysian politics. It also includes a new foreword by veteran UMNO leader, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who contested for the party presidency in the June 2018 party elections. The contributors in this collection study developments in Malaysia’s dominant party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and discuss the question of whether UMNO is in fact at an end. The answers to its future lie in part with a better understanding of its past and present. The authors draw attention to issues of party identity, leadership, membership, governance, institutional change, party financing, internal divisions and its relations with different communities and the public at large. The new and expanded edition draws attention to the factors that contributed to UMNO’s loss of government in GE14 and potential steps ahead. Not only does this book fill an important gap in the scholarly research on UMNO, this book offers different perspectives on the party’s contemporary challenges. This book aims to contribute to understanding, broaden public debate and stimulate further research on arguably one of Malaysia’s most important political institutions.

This book explores the ways in which language and education policies have contributed to the development of national integration in Malaysia, by examining whether and how policies have succeeded in forming a middle ground. Considered through the lenses of policy-making structure and achievement, this volume examines the relationships between the formation of a middle ground in language and education policies and the political structure, economic growth strategies and social system. It then goes on to explore the extent to which these policies have contributed to national integration whilst providing a valuable discussion on the complexities involved in developing a consistent policy framework. Drawing on research surveys of Malay proficiency amongst ethnic Chinese people, it ultimately demonstrates how the unification of education streams has contributed to the spread of the Malay language as a major medium of inter-ethnic communication within the Chinese community. As the most up-to-date study of contemporary Malaysian politics, focusing on the issue of national integration, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Southeast Asian politics, ethnicity, and education policy.

This book marks a major contribution since the work of Tan Liok Eee (1997) on the Dongjiaozong movement in Malaysia. The author's familiarity with both popular and academic writings in Mandarin has yielded rare, first-hand, and often bottom-up views on the Dongjiaozong movement from actors directly involved in the movement. As a result, readers get a better understanding of the personalities, leadership dynamics, creative strategies of control and resistance within this social movement as well as its ability to exploit political vulnerabilities and interpersonal relationships to cajole, negotiate and arm-twist the state in its bid to defend Chinese education in Malaysia. This book will be of interest to practitioners in the fields of political science and Malaysian studies, in general, and the study of state-society relations and social movements in non-liberal democratic contexts, in particular. - Associate Professor Goh Beng Lan, Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore

This book provides an overview of language education in Malaysia, covering topics such as the evolution of the education system from pre-independence days to the present time, to the typology of schools, and the public philosophy behind every policy made in the teaching of languages. The book consists of chapters devoted to the teaching of languages that form separate strands but are at the same time connected to each other within the education system. These chapters discuss: Implementing the national language policy in education institutions English in language education policies and planning in Malaysia Chinese and Tamil language education in Malaysia Teaching of indigenous Malaysian languages The role of translation in education in Malaysia It also discusses the development of language which enables the national language, Malay, to fulfil its role as the main medium of education up to the tertiary level. This book will be of interest to researchers studying language planning, teacher education and the sociology of education, particularly, within the Malaysian context.

First published in 1982, this text is widely regarded as a leading general history of the country. This new and revised edition brings the story of this fascinating country up to date, incorporating the latest scholarship on every period of Malaysian history, including recent research into pre-modern times. This text thus provides a historical framework that helps explain the roots of the issues dominating Malaysian life today, and the difficulties of creating a multicultural state where resources are equitably shared and the rights of all citizens are acknowledged. This book is a key text for courses on Southeast Asian history and politics. Covering a range of disciplinary subjects in the humanities and social sciences, it is also useful for anyone interested in the assessment of young, modernizing nations. New to this Edition: - A new chapter provides insights into Malaysian history of the last 15 years, including the growing influence of the internet and social media in the political sphere - Greater attention is paid to the strengthening of civil society movements that have arisen in light of perceived government failures - Fresh analysis of Islam's historical role in the Malay world and how it links with the growing Islamization of Malaysia today