Making ethnic citizens: The politics and practice of education in Malaysia |
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| Authors: | Graham K Brown |
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| Institution: | Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford OX1 3TB, UK |
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| Abstract: | This paper examines the politics and practice of education in Malaysia within the context of ethnicity and nation building. Public education in Malaysia—particularly, but not exclusively, at the pre-university level—is promoted as a nation-building tool, seeking to inculcate a sense of Malaysian-ness and patriotism. Simultaneously, however, public education—particularly, but not exclusively, at the university level—is used as a tool for the promotion of ethnic Malay interests. These two objectives are not necessarily contradictory; indeed the assertion that a vital ingredient in the creation of a ‘Malaysian nation’ is the eradication of inter-ethnic economic disparities has been at the heart of the Malaysian regime's discourse on nation building since the ethnic riots of May 1969. Hence, in this view, preferential policies for the economically disadvantaged but numerically dominant Malays are a necessary component of the nation-building project. Nonetheless, there are at least clear tensions between these two functions of education—tensions, which, I shall argue, help explain both the particularly sensitive politics of education in Malaysia, and the discursive stance the Malaysian regime has adopted within the educational field. |
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