Parental choice of schooling, learning processes and inter-ethnic friendship patterns: The case of Malay students in Chinese primary schools in Malaysia

Ethnic boundaries and everyday understanding: The case of Malay and Chinese parental choice of National and National Type School in Peninsular Malaysia

“…A few years prior to independence (in 1957), the issue of a national language was already part of British concerns. The Barnes Report of 1951 proposed a single, national school system with bilingual (Malay language and English) education (Tan et al, 2013). As a reaction to the Barnes Report, the Fenn Wu Report suggested that each primary school should teach in its own ethnic language whilst secondary schools should teach in English (Ozóg, 1993).…”

“…Malaysian children are assigned to primary schools located within their neighbourhood. Even so, parents have choices and freedom about what they might think best for their children (Tan et al, 2013). There is no law which restricts Malay parents from enrolling their children in a Chinese school or vice versa.…”

“…Some of the private religious schools, particularly those which had been established by PAS -one of the opposition political parties, were unwilling to accept the full government intervention. In 2001, in order to limit PAS's increasing involvement in alternative schooling, the ruling government decided to reduce the financial aid to private religious schools, which, according to the government, had long been politicized by PAS (Tan et al, 2013). This consequently affected some Malay parents' decisions on their children's schooling.…”

“…Although Malaysia has been independent for more than six decades (since 1957), identification based on ethnic categories remains significantly relevant right through the Malaysian bureaucratic system (Siddique, 1990), especially in its macrostructures such as the economy (Lee, 2005;Lee, 2012;Lee & Khalid, 2015), politics (Shamsul, 1986;Mohamad, 2008;Brown, 2007) and education (Ting, 2010;Gill, 2014). Living in a context in which ethnicity is consistently important in its macrostructures (Crouch, 2001) has consequently influenced decisions made by or for Malaysians in everyday life (micro-processes), such as the choice of primary and secondary school (Santhiram & Tan, 2010); friendships (Santhiram, 1995;Tan et al, 2013) and marriage (Hew, 2010;Pue & Sulaiman, 2013).…”

Chinese or Malay-Medium Schools? A Study of Factors Influencing Chinese Parents' Choice of Primary Schools in Sarawak, Malaysia

“…Most Chinesemedium schools have a large Chinese student population. Currently, Chinese students are the minority in Malay-medium public schools (Tan, Ngah and Darit, 2013). In the area of school choice, it is more important to study choice for primary schools rather than secondary schools because parents are more diverse in their choices at the primary level.…”