Different Education Systems Really A Threat To Unity

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Every so often, almost seasonally, issues crop up in the Malaysian political scene that would signal that the political parties and politicians are gearing up for an election.
One of those issues is the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC), which is a secondary Mandarin-oriented educational track which is not recognised officially by the government or public universities.
It looks like this is the season when it has come back. Before Anwar Ibrahim became prime minister, he mentioned in 2018 that the country’s recognition of the certificate would not mean undermining the importance of Bahasa Melayu.
Now, the DAP, which is a significant component of Anwar’s government, wants to re-push the agenda of recognising the UEC.
Why is this issue causing such big drama? To be honest, the UEC is just a piece of paper written by teenagers, marked by teachers, and it serves to evaluate the educational level of the said teenagers.
Basically, it is just an examination very much like the SPM, O-Levels, etc. It’s just not recognised (it is recognised by private universities and colleges).
Once politics enters the chat, the UEC almost becomes like a loyalty test. If you support it, you could be accused of dismantling Malaysia one syllabus at a time.
If you don’t, suddenly you’re a hero defending a dying and threatened culture (although no one can explain how it is actually dying!). If you question any of it, then you don’t “understand the sensitivities”.
Just take a look at the news media. One party promises recognition in its manifesto, using language so cautiously selected, like it’s been edited and re-edited a thousand times!
Another party immediately warns that recognition will cause moral decay and cultural erosion, and possibly the Earth coming to an end!
Then come the social media keyboard warriors who will post takes that will generate thousands of comments and exactly zero policy solutions (oof, does this sound like me?).
Everyone becomes very passionate, and even your Grab driver likely has an opinion about it. But don’t worry. After the election, it will go silent again.
Unity vs uniformity
But here is what it is. Malaysia already has multiple education systems. We have national schools, religious schools, private schools, and international schools.
We have vocational colleges, foundation programmes, public universities, and private universities. There are numerous options to choose from if you need an education.
So in my opinion, the argument for a single education system just isn’t realistic at the moment.
With that being said, a common schooling experience can actually unite a country. A shared syllabus creates shared experiences and shared knowledge. Many countries do this successfully, so it isn’t exactly nonsense. But we need to be clear not to confuse unity with uniformity.
Unity does not really require one syllabus, one exam, and one way of thinking. That’s not unity. A nation isn’t united because everyone is identical. It is united because people agree on the basics while being allowed to be different without causing a national failure.
So, in that sense, standardisation, unification, and even nationalism can exist across different education systems.
You can have common benchmarks such as shared core subjects, a standard civic education, and a consistent understanding of history and national identity.
This can be designed, and it isn’t something that can only happen if everyone sits for the same examination. In other words, you can have many routes to the same destination without forcing everyone onto the same RapidKL bus.
Different student characters
Now, I teach in private universities, and I’ve taught students from the UEC system sitting right next to students from the national system.
On campus and in classes, nobody comes and introduces themselves by saying they took the SPM, UEC, or O-Levels. They just tell each other their names, and that’s it.
They are all probably too busy worrying about deadlines, attendance marks, and whether the group they are joining for the final project is going to work together properly, or if a few members won’t do anything and just coast by on everyone else’s work.
But I have also noticed differences depending on the educational system or exam that they went through. Let me be clear, these are differences and not better-than or worse-than situations.
There is a difference in how they question lecturers, how their critical thinking is, how they negotiate deadlines, etc. It’s just the differences that create how a classroom works. But that’s a conversation for another day.
What matters is that, at the university level, these pathways end up coming together. Students are assessed using the same rubrics, held to the same standards, and subjected to the same assignments.
The system does not fail and, in fact, classrooms are usually better precisely because students don’t all think the same way.
Strength in diversity
The politicisation of the UEC ignores this totally. It treats students as symbols instead of humans, and it turns education into a prop for political theatre. It allows politicians to talk loudly about schools without ever listening to teachers or students.
On the ground, Malaysia has always been diverse. When we speak to each other, we often switch languages mid-sentence. We celebrate multiple cultural calendars and festivals. We argue about food like it’s a matter of life and death. Diversity is exactly how we operate, whether we like it or not.
I would also think that this would be an advantage in the real world. When the workforce is multilingual, and if diverse cultures aren’t a threat, we can definitely take on the world economy. Diversity would become one of our strongest selling points.
Again, I stress that none of this takes away the importance of the national education system. It can and should remain as the backbone of nation-building and must be strengthened, improved and supported.
But we should also not be afraid of alternatives. A strong system does not feel threatened by the existence of different pathways.
At some point, we need to decide what education is really for. If it’s meant to unite the nation, then maybe we should stop using it to divide people. Malaysia does not need fewer education pathways. We need better bridges between them, actually. - Mkini
ZAN AZLEE is a writer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and academic. Visit fatbidin.com to view his work.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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