In the last couple of
weeks there have been a good deal of interesting and important comments made
on the Tamil/Indian
Malaysian community. The guiding thread in all these comments has been the
problems faced by the community, the causes of
the problems within the community and suggestions of corrective measures.
Watson Road Tamil School, Port Klang.
The most dramatic problem that
took a lot of space in the mainstream media and caught a lot people's
attention recently was about the menace of gangsterism in the community.
If one surveys the various
comments carefully, three causes for the problems of the Tamil Malaysian
community come to mind. These causes are economic and political
marginalisation; Tamil cinema; and Tamil schools.
No benefits
Many middle- and upper-middle
class Tamil/Indian Malaysians hold a view that Tamil schools are practically
useless. Students in Tamil schools do not benefit either educationally or
economically. And, worse, Tamil schools have become a hotbed for nurturing
and sustaining vices and gangsterism.
So why maintain an institution
that does not do any good for the Tamil Malaysian community and generally
embarrasses the Indian community. Their solution: Get rid of Tamil schools.
On the surface this seems like a
reasonable proposal. But is it? The proposal is based on the assumption that
in comparison to Tamil education, putting Tamil Malaysians in the national
type schools will solve the educational and economic needs of the community
and that the community would eventually gain.
On what basis is this assumption
really made? If the national type schools are doing better, why are they
doing better in comparison to Tamil schools? To make sense of these
questions, we need to look at some basics.
What is education for? What are
its goals?
Simply put, education must be
able to prepare young people in terms of cognitive, affective and motor
skills so that they are prepared to meet the needs of the economy (which is
the economic agenda of education).
Secondly, education must be
geared towards producing youth who are informed, sensitive and critically
responsive to one's social and natural surroundings (the "active
citizenship"/political agenda of education).
Lastly, it has to groom young
people to actively sustain and live a cultural form of life (the cultural
agenda of education).
In a multi-cultural environment,
all these inter-related and inter-dependent aspects are really much more
complicated.
To continue with the questions,
what is the basis of the "abandon Tamil schools" argument? The Tamils are
asked to dump Tamil schools because the critics perceive that the national
type schools are better equipped to achieve the economic agenda of modern
education. Or, it is assumed that students going through the national type
schools seem to be able to perform
well economically later on in their life.
Really, the critics of Tamil
schools only have this to sustain their arguments. Because they feel that
Tamil education gets us "nowhere here" (read: does not give young Tamils in
Malaysia bargaining power in the labour market), Tamil schools need to go.
In other words, Tamil schools
have failed in their economic agenda and therefore have no right to exist.
(Of course, some even feel that they have failed in their cultural agenda,
having become a breeding ground of, say, problems like gangsterism.)
As one recent critic suggested,
Tamil education is useful perhaps only in Tamil Nadu, India, from where
Tamils come from, but certainly not in Malaysia. Though seemingly plausible,
this position is really practically shortsighted, culturally suicidal and
politically naïve.
Cultural agenda
We need answers to many critical
questions before we can even start thinking or understanding the
consequences of doing away with an institution. It is easy to do away with
an institution but difficult to build one.
In fact, I don't think the
critics have even thought about the sheer practical problems that will ensue
if the Tamil schools are closed down. Education even in this form for many
Tamil children will become practically unavailable. And what will happen to
all the teachers? This suggestion looks like another recipe for further
marginalisation.
There are more questions. Have
we done enough longitudinal investigations to show whether the majority of
Malaysians educated in Tamil schools are doing well or not given the social,
economic and political odds faced by Tamils and their institutions?
In fact, if the above question
is answered affirmatively, there will be nothing to criticise, and therefore
no critics, within the present framework. To prove that this will be so, we
need not look very far: just take a look at Chinese education in this
country.
Have the critics really explored
why the Tamil schools are not doing as well as the national type schools in
relation to the economic agenda? In this
context, people like to compare Tamil education with Chinese education and
ask an unreasonable question: "Why can't the Tamils/Indians organise their
education like the Chinese?"
In fact, it is behind such kinds
of questions that the focus on the responsibility of the government in a
multi-ethnic society is lost. The comparison is really insensitive to the
distinctive trajectories of the histories of the Chinese and the
Tamil/Indian people in Malaya, and later Malaysia. Of course, the leadership
of the Indian community is also certainly to be blamed.
To continue, have we studied the
career path of students in the national type schools for purposes of
comparison with those who are being educated in their mother tongue, in this
case Tamil? How many students from poor Tamil/Indian/Malaysian families
remain in the national educational system till they reach secondary and
tertiary levels of education or benefit from the
system beyond the secondary level of education?
What are the types of career
paths available to young Tamils/Indians? Does ethnicity influence different
career paths? Is the different educational stream (Tamil stream or national
stream) the primary reason that affects a young Tamil/Indian's career path
and economic well-being within our ethnically charged socio-cultural
environment?
The critics seem to be unaware
of an important goal of education: the cultural agenda of education. In
considering this, have we done our homework to find out which stream helps
greater self-development and culturally stronger identity formation? Have
the critics considered the impact of education through non-mother tongue
medium on children?
What is the status of
ethnic/mother tongue education in this country? What is our commitment to
multiculturalism and educating young Malaysians in multicultural
competencies?
What is our commitment to a
culturally diverse and active national community? Is mother tongue education
the responsibility of a particular ethnic community or the national
government? What is the Malaysian government doing for the education of the
Tamil minority - and other minorities - in their mother tongue?
Government's business
I think there is a need to
evaluate the extensive research available relating mother tongue education
to intellectual and emotional, and consequently, the self-development of a
child. Yes, there are practical and governance problems about realising
mother tongue education, the goals of multicultural education or nation
building. However, burying our head in the sand like an
ostrich will not certainly be helpful in resolving them!
Is it really difficult for a
society and its government - if it only had the political will - to make the
Tamil education stream sufficiently productive by upgrading the schools and
its facilities and by improving the standard of its teachers and their
performance?
In attacking Tamil school and
Tamil education, critics are careful to overlook or avoid an in-depth
reflection on the responsibility of a government in educating its citizens
in a multi-ethnic society or on the cultural goal of education. There seem
to be little realisation about the direct consequence of this on the
economic agenda of education.
In fact, some will even tell us
that we should stop demanding the government for everything. But education
is not just anything. It is about creating the "soul" of a community and the
nation. It is perhaps not the interest of "this government" but it certainly
must be the business of "the government".
There are in fact more areas in
which we do not have sufficient information. For instance, how do our
teachers deal with ethnicity in a multi-ethnic classroom? It would be naïve
to believe that all our primary and secondary schoolteachers are ethnically
neutral and imbued with multi-racial/multi-ethnic wisdom. There have been
many cases of cultural and ethnic insensitivity and abuse in Malaysian
schools. Has anyone considered what would have been the impact of this on
students'
performance?
Many cases reported in the
mainstream newspapers involved Tamil/Indian children in the multi-ethnic
national educational system. While such events
have been reported in the daily newspapers, I have not read much on how
teachers have been taken to task or made accountable for their ethnic
insensitivity. Such a kind of situation certainly affects the performance
and morale of Tamil/Indian children, as it must children of any other ethnic
community.
Ornamental reason
A critic of Tamil education
recently suggested that Tamil language be taught in a casual and not in an
institutionalised way. There is great danger in this. This is a sure recipe
for loss of mother tongue in the long run. Language teaching needs to be
institutionalised, transmitted and used inter-generationally. There must be
social avenues to keep it a living language
not just left to the interest on this or that individual or this or that
parent. To preserve a culture for ornamental reasons is to insult it. The
suggestions of the critic are a sure pathway to the "extinction" of a
language (at least from the Malaysian environment).
The Malaysian national
educational system is hardly multicultural in content and/or practice. Our
cultural policy is hardly clear or precise about its approach to mother
tongues - certainly more than just Bahasa Melayu, Mandarin, or Tamil - in
Malaysia or about paying attention to building multi-ethnic/cultural
competencies. Even in areas of stated intentions to introduce, at the
tertiary level, courses on civilisations, civilisations other that the
Islamic one has not been adequately addressed.
Thus, the national educational
system is an utter failure in terms of education's cultural agenda. Our
national educational system is hardly the place to look for an active and
informed support for ethnic cultural diversity in this country. The market,
mediated by the national educational system, influences a national
consumerist cultural outlook. A subterranean theme of the national
educational system is to create more of the same, to standardise. There is
an Americanisation of a public.
In Malaysia, ethnically
compartmentalised thinking and action in relation to what I think are
national issues, systematic long-term official neglect of ethnic cultural
institutions, suggestions of legal difficulties to take corrective actions
to improve or upgrade Tamil schools, poor leadership and untimely political
intervention have the direct potential of killing Tamil schools and
education eventually. We really don't need critics.But there are hardly any
good reasons for dumping Tamil schools or mother
tongue education. In fact, we will be going against an important social
current of the present millennium - the active protection and promotion of
enlightened ethnic cultural diversity.
