Pelan Pembangunan Pendidikan Malaysia (PPPM) 2013-2025:

UNITY AMONG STUDENTS

Wirawani binti Kamarulzaman, Faculty of Creative Industries, UTAR
Prof. Dr. Rosnani Hashim, Institute of Education, IIUM

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background
Unity has always been an issue to a multiracial country like Malaysia. Unity is important
to ensure the optimum productivity in a country, whether in economics, politics, education or
social. Everyone plays a role and is interdependent of each other.
Education is considered as the most effective bridge to unity. Schools are the main
medium to cultivate the sense of unity in a citizen, preferably during the young age. Interaction
with individuals from different socioeconomic status (SES) background, religion and ethnic
groups enables students to understand, accept and appreciate diversity. Through this value and
experiences, national identity and unity can be created.
Moreover, education can unite in some other ways. Through having a uniform curriculum
is one of the ways. Curriculum built as a national curriculum must be adopted in National
Education System which includes government educational institutions; government-aided
educational institutions; and private educational institutions.
By having a common medium of instruction is another way to unite students. Schools are
supposed to use national language as the medium of instruction so that national identity could be
built. Moreover, students are expected to attend the same school, preferably national schools so
that they could integrate better among each other. Lastly through providing equal opportunity
and access to learning and moving up the social ladder is another means to unity that education
can provide. Students are given equal opportunity to enrol to schools since Malaysia offers free
education through our national schools. In line with that, Malaysia has produced an education
development plan that highlighted unity in its educational aspiration, namely Pelan
Pembangunan Pendidikan (PPPM).

1.2 Pelan Pembangunan Pendidikan Malaysia (PPPMM) 2013-2025

PPPMM is a product of a brave approach by Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia (KPM),
ministry of education, since it involved opinions and views from various national and
international experts to assess and evaluate Malaysia’s education system. KPM also referred to
various documents including Strategi Transformasi Kementerian Pendidikan Tinggi 2007-2020,
Pelan Induk Pembudayaan Pembelajaran Sepanjang Hayat 2011-2020. A big number of
Malaysian citizens were also involved in this. Furthermore, a national dialog called Dialog
Pendidikan Negara (DNPN) was held from April to July 2012 involving almost 12000 citizens
from various education and SES levels to gain their feedbacks and suggestions regarding
PPPMM. It is a product of depth analysis, interviews, focus groups, case studies and research
that were done with the help of national and international experts, KPM officers, teachers,
principals, headmasters and parents around the world.
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 The objective of PPPMM is to fortify the vision and aspiration of education system until
2025. It provides the basic direction and detail implementation initiative so that the dynamics
objectives of education system can be achieved.
There are five aspiration listed in the education system, namely access, quality, equality,
unity and efficiency. Figure A below shows the detail descriptions of each aspiration.

Figure A

1.2. Statement of problem

Unity is listed as one of the aspiration in the education system as showed in Figure A.
The objective is to have the education system that offers sharing of experiences and values to
children with appreciation of diversity. Students from diverse background are expected to learn
in the same environment thus unity is hoped to be built.
However, the questions that come to our minds are to what extend the strategies in PPPM
able to unite students in schools? Are the strategies good enough in to promote unity among
Malaysian students?
Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to answer those questions by examining PPPM as
the curriculum reform towards better unity in schools. Several other variables are also explored,
namely the challenges to unity among students, the current education system that schools
employ, and the phases planned for unity until 2025. An analysis and a synthesis are done at the
end of this paper.

2. UNITY IN SCHOOLS
2.1. Challenges to unity
KPM has indentified a few challenges to unity among students at schools presently. The
difficulty in assessing unity systematically was the first in the list. There is no single tool to
assess it systematically available. The data that KPM is relying on is the data that shows that the
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diversity among students and teachers in national primary school, Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK)
based on students’ enrolment in schools. The data shows the decreasing numbers of diversity in
SK, which indicates the decline in unity as well. However, this does not solve the problem of not
having a proper tool to measure unity systematically.
The decreasing numbers of diversity in schools must be due to the reason that parents and
students have various school options to choose from. This is the second challenge to unity
mentioned in PPPM. Vernacular schools are offered at primary level which are all funded by the
government and considered as national schools leads to the homogeneous enrolments in schools.
Although the number of enrolments show that Malaysia is a multiracial country, but Malay
students seemed to enrol at SK, Chinese students to Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC), and
Indian students to Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Tamil (SJKT). When this happens, it still does not
encourage unity in schools. Students cannot share experience and values when they are not going
through it together.
Figure B shows the trends of enrolments in primary level. The left graph shows that there
is a decrease of Chinese students in SK by half from 2000 to 2011. In 2000, only 92% of Chinese
students enrol in SKJC but it has increased to 96% in 2011. The same goes to Indian students.
The right graph indicates the number of Indian students who enrol in SK is also decreasing by
11% in 2011. In 2000, there were 49% of Indian students’ enrolment in SK but it has decreased
to only 38% in 2011. The reason for the decline was not mentioned in the PPPM, but to my
assumption, SK is no more seen as a reliable place to learn by other ethnic. A lot of Malay and
Islamic cultures are found in SK which has frightened parents of other ethnic groups that SK will
Islamize their children. Furthermore, since the medium of instruction of each school honours
their mother tongue, then it would be easier for students to learn using their own languages used
at home.

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 Figure B

At the secondary level, the KPM has decided to only fund one type of national school,
that is Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK), which also includes boarding schools, Sekolah
Berasrama Penuh (SBP), Sekolah Menengah Teknik/Vokasional, Sekolah Menengah
Kebangsaan Agama (SMKA) and Maktab Rendah Sains Mara (MRSM) to narrow the choice of
schools to students. However, there was no restriction to build private school. Thus, there are a
number of private schools available to opt to. For example, Chinese community built their own
independence schools, which are privatized and they send their kids there. There are also
international schools which are using their own curriculum as well as other private schools that
are using national curriculum. A lot of unfunded Islamic religious schools are also available to
choose from. When the choices are many, students may select schools that they are comfortable
with, which use the same language that they use at home. This also hinders unity in schools.
Figure C shows the enrolment diversity percentages in national and private schools in
Malaysia. At the primary level, SK shows on only 74% of diversity. This is because of
vernacular schools, such as national-type schools are available. Furthermore only 88% of
diversity enrolment is found in SMK. This is because of there are other private schools available
to choose from. Both numbers do not indicate the unity that our nation wants.

Figure C
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 Moreover, the diversity of teachers in SK is another challenge to unity. In 2001, 78%
Malay teachers in SK and the number has increased to 81% in 2011. Indian teachers remain at
5% in SK until 2011. These figures do not harm the diversity of enrolment of students. But the
numbers of Chinese teachers decrease from 17% in 2001, to only 14% in 2011. This has affected
the enrolment of Chinese students in SK. When Chinese students cannot find Chinese teachers in
SK, they tend not to choose SK to go to. This is another reason why SK is not the choice of
Chinese students. To my assumption, the cause is the same between why Chinese students tend
to choose Chinese school to learn at, and the cause of why Chinese teachers choose Chinese
schools to teach at, there is no unity in the beginning. It seemed that those teachers learned from
SJKC then to Independent Chinese schools, then to any tertiary level for teacher education, they
are more prone to teach their own ethnic group for conformability.
Another challenge to unity mentioned in PPPM is the environmental factor. It was found
that the environment of SK is not supporting unity in that school. A study was done by Jemaah
Nazir Jaminan Kualiti (JNJK) on the interaction among students from different races and ethnic
groups and the results were found to be encouraging; the interaction is good, whether in or
outside classroom. Students from various ethnic backgrounds are found to be working together in
curriculum activities. However, the results of further investigation of the JNJK’s inspection to 20
schools where 55% of the schools were primary schools showed that there is a necessity for
schools that are less diverse to take proactive actions in creating more chances, such as activities
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in school clubs and societies for majority students from an ethnic group to interact with the
minorities. For example, Malay students that are in the majority group in SK are to be given
more opportunities to interact with Chinese or Indian students who are the minorities in that
school.

2.2 Current Strategies

There are four current strategies that our school system is adopting for now. Firstly is
maintaining the present system structure where all types of schools are to preserve their mother
tongue as the medium of instructions. Parents are allowed to send their children to any kind of
national primary schools. After completing the primary level, students must be united in SMK
since it is the only one type of national secondary school to choose from. However, various
school options in secondary level lead to homogenous enrolments, which also lead to disunity in
school. Furthermore, SMKA is only offered to Malay students, since it teaches Islamic education
to students. Thus, this option is not leading students to unity.
Secondly, the teaching of civic education as a subject in school is expected to promote
unity in schools. It was introduced in 1953 as a subject in the schools to educate students to
understand diversity and appreciate similarities and differences in Malaysian culture. Some
topics on Malaysia history are taught in the subject. This is to encourage the feeling of
appreciation of citizenships, culture and values of Malaysia. One of the topics, that is the
Rukunegara was evaluated as an effective topic since most students are found to understand and
agree with the principles. However, students are unable to apply those principles in their daily
lives; for example, they understand that community service is a wise job but very little involve in
it voluntarily.
Thirdly is the building up of Wawasan schools. These schools are built in 2003 to
advocate unity among students where 3 types of national schools, SK, SJKC, and SJKT share the
same school area and facilities but still under different administrations. However, the difficulty
in building all types of schools in the same area held up the progress of it. Only 5 school
complexes existing till today.
Fourthly is the program which is called Rancangan Integrasi Murid Untuk Perpaduan
(RIMUP): Integration through curriculum activities. It is a program where students from various
types of ethnic schools work together in selected curriculum activities such as sport oriented or
community service. Figure D below shows a summary on RIMUP. Schools are divided into 5
groups, for instance, A; SK, SJKC, SJKT, B; SK, SJKC, C, D and E. The activities done were
activities for academic excellence, sports and games, co-curriculum, community service and
activities that are enhancing patriotic spirit. However, since the last few years, the budget was
reduced. In 2007, the budget was 25.4 million but it was reduced to 2.4 million only in 2011.
This has slowed down the progress of the program, thus unity cannot be promoted through this
program.

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 Figure D

2.3. Curriculum phases.

PPPM is made to reform the current curriculum which adopts existing system structures. The
main objective of it is to make national schools, SK and SMK as the prime preference of
schooling of Malaysians so that students from different ethnic groups, religions, and SES level
could interact among each other thus unity could be built. There are three phases involved; the
first is Gelombang 1(2013-2015), the second is Gelombang 2 (2016-2020) and the third one is
Gelombang 3 (2021-2025).

2.3.1. Gelombang 1 (2013-2015): Basic preparation

There are two main things that will be done within this time. First, a survey will be done in
2014 to Year 6 and Form 5 students to explore their civic knowledge, behaviour and attitudes
towards unity. This is to assess their understanding on unity and thus improvement of education
system could be made when necessary. The selection of Year 6 and Form 5 students is not
written in PPPM. But the reason would be because that those are the final years of each level of
schooling. My query is why do we still need to do a survey when it is obvious that students are
not united from the current system looking at the enrolment rates from various schools options?
Furthermore, various studies have found that the students do understand the civic education but
unable to apply it in daily life. However, doing more survey brings no harm, only it consumes
more time when we can actually use the time for improvement.

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 Second, is to improve the transition of SJK students to SMK. Students of SJK at present are
having the difficulty in Malay language. In reality, they could not read, speak or write the
language well. However, when it comes to the results of Year 6 exam, Ujian Penilaian Sekolah
Rendah (UPSR), it shows that SJK students are performing as equally well as SK students
whereas that is not true because the standard of marking Malay language papers for national-type
of school are unequal. The marking standard for SK students is higher than the standard of SJK
students. This is due to the reason that the assessment level of students at SJK is lower than those
at SK. Therefore, the standard of teaching and assessment will be improved so that the level of
understanding and competency will be similar between SK and SJK students. Thus, students
from SJK will be more confident to enrol at SMK later.

2.3.2. Gelombang 2 (2016-2020)

More radical actions will be taken during this time. Among the plan is strengthening of
RIMUP program. KPM will reanalyze the activities that are suitable to promote unity in the
program. Currently, studies from KPM shows that some of the activities are irrelevant for unity
building. That was why the budget is reduced more than half because it is seemed not to promote
unity for the time being. However, this could be done sooner as the budget reduction was done
since 2011. Why do we need 5 years to improve the program?
Strengthening of Islamic studies and moral and civic education is another action that will be
taken in this phase. For civic education, a few options are still under consideration, such as
weekly activities that collaborate students from all ethnic groups and this will be done 4 types a
month. The objective of grouping students from various ethnic is to develop the sense of unity
among students. Moreover, community service activities will also be done where students will be
able to interact better with the community through these activities.
Pedagogy of Islamic studies and moral education will be reanalyzed so that a lot of other
approaches can be implemented such as role play, simulation, discussion and small group
projects. The teaching approach which focuses more on students’ participants is more effective
than teacher-centered learning to inculcate the Islamic values and virtues to students. The
teaching of Islamic studies will concentrate further on cultivating Islamic values and the
philosophies of Islam and other religions as well. KPM is also considering to combine Muslims
and non-Muslims students for few classes on common values.
Strengthening of the support for other languages education will also be done. More languages
will be offered in SK towards approaching 2020 such as Mandarin, Tamil and Arabic. These new
subject of languages will need more materials and support for them to be delivered, therefore,
KPM is planning to enhance support so that students from various ethnic would be more
interested to learn in SK.

2.3.3. Gelombang 3 (2021-2025).

This time will witness that SK and SMK as the leading choice of parents and students from
different races and background. KPM will continuously observe the interactions and integration
levels among all students. KPM will reconsider the school options to see whether or not further
changes are needed to improve unity. This will depend on the quality and results of the first two
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phases. If SK and SMK become the prime choice of schooling, other types of schools may not be
needed anymore.

3. PPPM AS A CURRICULUM REFORM

According to the history of education, schools were built based on the needs of each race
before the Independent. There were English school, Malay school, Chinese school and Indian
school. The medium of instructions were different. Each type of school was using their own
textbooks, curriculum and they chose their own teachers; teachers for Chinese and Indian school
were imported from china and India. The focus of education then was to maintain the loyalty of
the students towards their origin countries which somehow disadvantaged unity among races
then.
However, the awareness of political leaders and some citizens on unity during that time has
led to change in the education system that was left by the British. There was the time when
Razak report 1956 came in where the main objective to unity was to make Malay language as the
national language that should be used in all schools. Rahman Talib report in 1960 on the other
hand has taken out communal secondary schools from the national system of assisted schools to
ensure students of all races attend both National and National-type secondary schools only.
A lot of other changes were made throughout the years for education system to enhance unity.
From the history itself, we could find that Malaysia was and is still struggling for unity. One of
the most significant changes in the Education Act 1996 is when the below clause is deleted from
it.

(2) Where at any time the Minister is satisfied that a National-type primary school may
suitably be converted into a National primary school, he may be order direct that the school
shall become a National primary school.
[The Education Act 1961, Clause 21(2)]

The Education minister had no more right to convert or abolish SJK and other vernacular
schools makes it harder to unite students in one type of school, that is the national school. I must
consider this as the main obstruction to unity among students. When we allowed more national
schools (and national-type schools), it is impossible to invite Chinese or Indian students to learn
at SK. Moreover, section 17 of Education Act 1996 which specifically mentioned:

The National language shall be the main medium of instruction in all educational institutions
in the National Education System except any national-type school established under section 28
or any other educational institution exempted by Minister from this section.

(Education Act 1996, Sec. 17)

SJK and other types of education institutions are not obliged to use National language or
Malay language as the medium of instructions has broaden the gap among ethnics. Before that,
the Education Act 1961 only wrote that Malay language should be used as the medium of
instruction at all national primary and secondary school was adequate to maintain National
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language at schools. When language which plays a huge role in unity has loosen its role, then
unity is also seen as loosen.
Moreover, the requirements to enter public universities were also come loose. The result from
the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) which is a standardized test for Chinese independent
high school students is accepted as one of the entry requirements. It was not recognized before,
and in May 2004 the National Accreditation Board (LAN) required students entering local
private colleges using any qualification other than the SPM to pass the SPM Malay paper.
However, this drew protests from Chinese community and as a result then Minister of Higher
Education Dr Shafie Salleh exempted UEC students from this requirement (Wikipedia, Chinese
independent high school).
Therefore, from these incidences, we could understand the challenges that we are facing right
now, the reason why diversity percentages in national school is decreasing. Parents and students
are opting for schools where they could preserve their mother tongue and comfortable to learn
with and because of the changes made in the Education Acts.
Looking back at the challenges to unity mentioned in PPPM, one was the decline number of
Chinese teachers in SK. This issue is not discussed further throughout the plan. It is important to
have Chinese teachers more in SK so that would invite more Chinese students to SK. KPM for
example could offer more benefits to SK and SMK teachers than what they have now so that
more Chinese teachers are interested to teach at SK and SMK.
Another remark that I would like to address is from the current strategies used where the
progress or benefit to unity of Wawasan schools is not elaborated further. It is a puzzle whether
or not the program is supporting unity. But to my assumption, the building of those five
complexes of Wawasan schools is not promoting unity, since all the schools are under their own
management system, which is separated from one another. Also, we have not heard any news on
how this type of school supports unity.
My further analysis is on the three phases planned for unity until 2025. Among the actions is
to improve the transition process of SJK students to SMK by upgrading their standards of Malay
language. Students will be taught using the LINUS program to improve their command of Malay
language thus this would lead to better interaction among races. SJK students would be more
comfortable to enrol at SMK when they believe that their grasp of Malay language is as better as
Malay students. To my belief, this action is important and can be done with vigilant preparation.
Furthermore, the plan to strengthen the civil education with more activities and Islamic studies
with improved pedagogy are seemed promising but rather too idealistic.
What is important is actually uniting students in the schools by all means. Having too many
options for schooling is not helping us to unite. Another weakness of Education Act 1996 is
when private institutions are encompassing as one type of National Education System as
mentioned below:

There shall be three categories of educational institutions in the National Education System,
namely –
Government educational institutions; Government-aided educational institutions; and
Private educational institutions.

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 (Educational Act 1996, sec. 16)
It appeared that the government is giving the freedom for so many types of private schools to
emerge and thus students will have a number of school options to choose from, where I find this
as unnecessary. I supposed that what was written in the Education Act 1961 when it did not
register private schools under National Education System gives more restriction to types of
schools that students can choose from.
Language is the main tool of unity, therefore Malay language should maintain as the medium
of the instruction to all schools regardless of SJK or Independent Chinese schools.
A radical change in the Education Act should be planned. I believe one type of national
school is adequate so all students despite of their ethnic will enrol to SK and SMK. Limited
permission should be given to private schools. For example, they need to use Malay language in
more than one subject. They also need to use the national curriculum so that the experience of
learning in private schools will be almost similar to SK. We do not need so many types of
schools. Indonesia, for example, has only one type of national school although the country is also
a multiracial country.
However, looking back at the Education Acts, from my observation when I compared the
Education Act 1961 and 1996, another act has improvised to reinforce unity. There is only one
condition that schools need to fulfil in order to teach Mandarin and Tamil language at SK and
SMK. Section 2 of Education Act 1996 stated that schools are allowed to teach those languages
when there are 15 students to learn the language. This is different from Education Act 1961
which stated two conditions, the first is the same as above, and the second one is when the
teaching of those subjects is reasonable and practical.
Another act which also has improvised is the teaching of indigenous language, Arabic,
Japanese, German and French languages in schools. The act says

(ii) The indigenous languages shall be made available if it reasonable and practicable so to do
and if the parents of at least fifteen pupils in the school so request;

(iii) Arabic, Japanese, German or French or any other foreign language may be made available
if it reasonable and practicable so to do;
(Education Act 1996, Sec.2)
Therefore the plan in the second phase of PPPM to strengthen the support for other languages
to be taught in SK appeared sensible.
The third phase which mentioned that KPM will reconsider other types of school than
national school when SK and SMK should be the leading choice of parents and students during
that time, it appeared to be nonsense when the Education Act 1996 has deleted the clause that
national-type schools can be converted to national primary of school. The act itself should be
changed first in order to implement something new. Chinese and Indian will raise their concern if
KPM shut down the national-type schools whereas the Education Act forbids that.
Finally, an issue would come in contact when Chinese or Indian citizen are to learn in SK and
SMK; how to preserve their culture and ethnic identity? Even now when more emphasis in put
on Malay language has grown concerns by Chinese parents about the loss of their cultures,

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especially their languages which, in the case of Mandarin has an important economic value
locally and internationally, if their children enter the national primary schools. Yet this can be
solved by modifying the content of civic and moral education. The content could be made in
such a way that students would understand and recognize the value of diversity. Mandarin can be
used at home and other settings. Besides, the Education Act 1996 has mentioned that Mandarin
subjects as well as other languages can be offered when the number of students reaches 15 per
class. Cultural practices are also allowed as usual in order for us to embrace and conform to other
culture as well.

4. CONCLUSION
PPPM as a curriculum reform to unity which is one of the education aspirations is discussed
in this paper. A few challenges are mentioned that hindered unity in our schools. The current
strategies employed are not good enough to promote unity; therefore three phases of unity
development are set into planning for betterment. However those phases are seemed to be
lacking as well. Some of them might be too idealistic while the others are not practical enough to
unity. We could not change the system if the philosophy itself needs to be changed. Education
Act should be modified in order not to facilitate other races and ethnic groups, but to build unity
in one roof.

REFERENCES
Education Act 1961, Retrieved from http://malaysiafactbook.com/Education_Act_1961
Education Act 1996 Retrieved from
http://jpt.mohe.gov.my/RUJUKAN/akta/akta%20pendidikan%201996.pdf
Pelan Pembangunan Pendidikan Malaysia 2013-2025, Retrieved from
http://www.moe.gov.my/userfiles/file/PPPM/Preliminary-Blueprint-BM.pdf
Wikipedia Chinese independent high school. Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_independent_high_school

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