Introduction

The English Language Teaching In Malaysia : A Historical Account journal (1987) was written by the late Professor
Dr. Hyacinth Gaudart, a leading figure in the field of English language teaching in Malaysia. The late Professor has
made major contributions to the development of ELT through her teaching, scholarship, research, publications and
her involvement in the Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (MELTA). The journal was writtenwhen she
was a lecturer in University Malaya in hopes to give a clear view and historical perspective to the teaching of English
in Malaysia so that the younger generation especially teachers will know what English Language education was like
in the past, and why is it where it is now.
Summary
In the 60s, public education in Malaysia is divided into four major systems by the languages chosen as the medium
of instruction. The four media of instruction corresponding to four sub-cultures within Malaysian society, divergent
worldviews and philosophies holdings that are not necessarily compatible. Development of the system of education is
part of history and, in this context, this article examines the teaching of English in Malaysia.
History of Language Education In Pre-Independent Malaysia
According to Beebout (1972:104), before the arrival of Europeans to Malaysia, education in the Malay States
consisted mainly of religious education under the leadership of Muslim missionaries. These classes later evolved into
formal religious schools. Parents taught their children practical skills. The Malay royalty were taught the Quran, since
they were to be religious leaders, and also military skills and astrology knowledge. Eventhough, there is a record of a
Roman Catholic school which was founded in 1548 (Wong and EE, 1975:21) in Malacca. Little is known, what
happened to the school after the fall of the Portuguese Malacca to the Dutch. Little is known whether the Dutch had f
established any form of education and also, if the first Chinese settlers in the 15th century brought any form of
Chinese education as they arrived. Malaysia has inherited its current education system from the British, therefore
considerable documentation on education during those period are many and can be access easily.
British Colonial Policy - Although the British influence can be traced in education in Malaysia of 1816, it was only
after the transfer of the Malay States to the Colonial Office in London in 1867 that the British paid attention to
education. The British officials who served in the Malay States was interested in the culture and life of the Malays.
Most of the senior officers spoke Malay, and considered themselves Malay scholars. The first dictionary was in fact
made by a British officer, R. O. Wi. Stevenson (1975) said that the British appreciated the value of education
planning and policy: The British ruled over the Malay States at that time had the most healthy respect for the potential of education as a
socio-politica catalyst ... The first thirty years of the British rule in the Malay States saw the establishment of an educational system and
the definition of an education policy which outline and their contents were remain basically in the largest part of their administration in this
century, unchanged.

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There were many recommendations and reports on educational plans involving Malaya at that time. In 1870, Woolley
Report, which stated that educational development in the colony was slow due to lack of encouragement from the
British administration and indifference on the part of Malayans. It recommended the appointment of schools
inspectors ( known as Jemaah Nazir nowadays), reforming the grants-in-aid programme to all English medium
schools, whether missionary or otherwise, and reforming vernacular education. A.M. Skinner was the first school
inspector appointed in 1872.
Kok Loy Fatt, in examining British colonial records, found that the Colonial Office had never at any time laid down a
clear policy on education for the Residents (regional governors) to adopt. The lack of a clear education policy in the
Malay States also meant that there was a different rate of development of education among the Malay States. Malay
education in Perak and Selangor, for example, was far ahead of the other Malay States, with Perak being even
further ahead than Selangor. The Colonial Office appeared to be aware of this problem but only suggested that
attempts should be made to achieve uniformity. On the whole, the Colonial Office in London left it very much to those
in Malaya to guide their decisions in London (Kok, 1978:12-13). The British felt that large-scale teaching of English
would estrange children from their parents and give them an inflated sense of their own importance. English had to
be taught only within limits. This policy later accounted for the British Government playing a negligible role in the
development of education in English before the early twentieth century.
It was later on in 1897, Frank Swettenham spoke up for the teaching of English be reinforced, to meet the demand
for commercial and administrative services (Kok, 1978:16). Therefore, it seems that the education policy was
developed to meet the demand of the Colonial power. In 1899, the Education Code was introduced until it was
revised in 1908. The code main objectives were :
1. To make the grants to schools dependent on general efficiency rather than on individual passes.
2. To encourage missionary and other charities to carry out the work of education in English schools by liberal
examination grants and by building grants.
3. To emphasize the importance of teaching English by making 'English Vocabulary and Composition one of the
'elementary subjects' with reading, writing and arithmetic, and strengthening it further by making 'English
grammar and construction' subject category to be taken with it.
4. To establish a system of grants to aid in the preparation of pupil-teachers, and to encourage by grants the
preparation of native boys who showed any capacity for the Cambridge School Certificate examinations
(Kok, 1978).
Over the years, changes have been made on different parts of code for different reasons, hardly any of which were
educational. For example, the idea that the colonial Government should encourage missionary changed when
American missionaries ' influence was felt to be increased.
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Education In English
English-medium schools were the best organized and the most developed of all the schools in the country. Englishmedium schools were largely of two kinds: missionary schools and public schools. In the past the English medium
schools offered students a chance of social mobility. According to Kok (1967), success in these schools means better
jobs and white-collar employment which was preferable to manual labor.
The first Western schools were established in 1816 by the Christian missionaries in Penang. The first mission
schools were 'Free'-schools, not because no payment was required, but because they were open to all races.
However, the truth was, because the schools located in urban areas, it was above all the Chinese, make up the
majority of the school population, and less of the Indians, who will benefit from this education. Although the
missionaries founded a few Malay vernacular schools in Penang and Malacca, their schools were mostly English
medium schools. Missionaries had been prevented by the colonial government from establishing schools in the more
rural areas of Peninsular Malaysia, because it would mean their working among the Muslim Malays.
In Borneo territories too, the missionaries were the first to set up schools. In 1847, the McDougalls of the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel opened their first school. In 1883, the Mill Hill Fathers opened St. Joseph's boarding
school in Kuching. Two aspects of these mission schools are thus important in this discussion. First, these schools were
confined to urban areas because the colonial government had forbidden missionaries to work among the Malays. Since the
majority of those in the urban areas were Chinese and Indians, it was essentially those two ethnic groups which benefited from
Western education. Second, the mission schools were the most successful in the education system at the time. In fact,

it was the success of the mission schools which prompted the colonial government to introduce English medium
schools of their own.
Unfortunately, even the government English schools introduced by the colonial government were confined to urban
areas. In Peninsular Malaysia, the number attending such schools was thus only about 23 per cent of the total school
population in 1935 (Beebout, 1972:51). Of those in English medium schools in Peninsular Malaysia in 1922, 85 per
cent were in mission schools. Winstedt (1932) argued that 'the aided schools seem to have controlled an undue
proportion of the English education throughout the country'.
The English medium schools, both missionary and government schools, were built along the lines of English schools
in 1900, with a 3-5-2 structure: three years primary, five years middle, and two years secondary. Syllabuses and
textbooks came from England and were actually out-dated and discarded materials. In government schools, teachers
were of poor calibre, and many were untrained. Interviews with educators who were pupils in schools at that time,
indicated that many principals of girls' schools, for example, were wives of expatriate officers. In comparison,
teachers in mission schools seemed more dedicated to the education of their pupils.
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The only exception to the education of Malays was the setting up of a special English medium school to train the
upper echelons of Malay society. lbrahim Saad (1979) said that the British believed as these upper-class Malay
children were to be the leaders of the people, they should receive special training. Accordingly, the Malay College
was set up in Kuala Kangsar, and was to be the prototype, many years later, of the residential schools which now
exist in various parts of the country. It was also from the Malay College that the first nationalist dissidents against the
British arose (Chai, 1977).
After the Second World War, the British were faced with problems of a communist insurrection, Malay nationalism,
and communal politics. To cope with these problems, the British decided that one possible solution was to use
education as a tool for political integration and nation building. The education policy was thus geared towards this
end (Chai, 1977).
One dissatisfaction which was expressed by the Malay nationalists was the standard of Malay education (Malayan
Union Annual Report, 1947:25). In 1950, the British appointed the Barnes Committee to look into this problem. It did
not concentrate just on Malay education but also looked into the problems of Malaya's plural society. It was
concerned with nation building and made suggestions towards this end. According to the Federation of Malaya
Report of the Commission on Malay Education (1951: Ch. 4, paras. 2 and 3):
Our approach is governed by the belief that the primary school should be treated avowedly and with full deliberation as an
instrument for building up a common Malayan nationality.... Thus, our first step is to call in question the public provision or maintenance of
separate vernacular schools for any social community, and to suggest instead a single-type primary school open to pupils of all races and
staffed by teachers of any race, provided only that those teachers possess the proper qualifications and are federal citizens.

To achieve this, the Report suggested that State and Federal financial aid be withdrawn from Tamil and Chinese
schools, so that those schools could eventually be phased out. It also recommended a national education system
that would lead into a bilingual system in Malay and English. The recommendations raised a storm of protest among
the Chinese community, however. To placate the Chinese, the colonial government, in 1951, invited Dr William Fenn
(an American) and Dr Wu Teh-yao (a United nations official) to study Chinese education in Malaya. The result was
what is now known as the Fenn-Wu Report or Chinese Schools and the Education of Chinese Malayans: The Report
of a Mission Invited by the Federation Government to Study the Problem of the Chinese in Malaya . The Fenn-Wu
report (1951: Chap. 2) found that the Chinese leaders were concerned about the elimination of Chinese schools, and
with it the possible elimination of their culture. It therefore recommended that what ought to be considered was not
the elimination of Chinese schools and the suppression of Chinese culture, but a system of education in which pupils
in Chinese schools would, besides learning Chinese, also learn Malay and English. This system would make the
Chinese medium pupils trilingual and all other pupils at least bilingual. Chinese schools would thus be integrated into
the national system and yet not be destroyed.
The situation at this time may be summed up by the observations of Chai Hon Chan who points out that the Malay,
Chinese, and Tamil schools promoted ethnocentricity as they socialized the child to a Malay, or a Chinese or an Indian world4 | Page

view which was relevant to the maintenance of the cultural identify of each group, but they were all increasingly incongruous in the rapidly
changing political social, and economic conditions of a country preparing for national independence (Chai, 1977:26).

On the other hand, English medium schools promoted the acquisition of foreign, Western values.
The major weakness of the English schools was the basic alienness of the cultural values transmitted, but as multiethnic schools their strength lay in the institutional framework they provided for the social and cultural integration of
all those who attended them. Unfortunately, the tendency for English schools to be located in the urban centres
resulted in their enrolments being predominantly Chinese who formed the bulk of the urban population. While the
vernacular schools manifestly served to reinforce the group identity of each of the three major groups, the English
schools effectively weakened the traditional cultural loyalties of those who became, in varying degrees, westernized.
Thus the outstanding result of the quadrilingual educational system was the social and cultural isolation of the
Malays, Chinese and Indians educated in their own language, and the emergence of a cosmopolitan, modernizing
group drawn in varying proportions from the three traditional communities whose common bond was English....
English education tended to create a new division within each group so that, for example, social differences
appeared between the English-educated Chinese and the Chinese-educated and vernacular-educated among the
Malays and Indians (Chai, 1977).
Language Education in Independent Malaysia
The first educational report, the report of the Education Committee of 1956 or the Razak Report incorporated the
ideas of the Barnes Committee and Fenn-Wu Reports. The Report made it clear that although the intention of the
government was to gradually introduce Malay as the national language, it also had full intentions of maintaining other
local languages, and certainly attempting to ensure that every child was able to function in more than one language.
Non-Malay children were to be encouraged to acquire Malay while Malay children were to be encouraged to acquire
English, which was to be a compulsory subject in all schools. The Report (1956) recommended that:
Instruction in Kuo Vu (Mandarin) and Tamil shall be made available in all Primary Schools maintained in whole or in
part from public funds when the parents of fifteen children from any one school request that instruction should be
given in either of these languages.... We recognize that it is difficult to provide for all the various languages in small
schools and recommend that, where possible, such small schools should be grouped into larger units.... We consider
that there should be some flexibility in our secondary school system.... We can see no reason for altering the
practice in Chinese Secondary Schools of using Kuo Vu as a general medium provided that these Chinese schools
fall into line with the conditions mentioned (being a national secondary school, working towards common final
examinations and where the teaching of English and Malay are compulsory).
The Razak Report (1956) also recommended that the Roman script (or Rumi) be used, although the Perso-Arabic
script (or Jawi) would continue to be taught to Muslim pupils. One interesting recommendation of the Report (1956)
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was: 'We see no educational objection to the learning of three languages in secondary schools or to the use of more
than one language in the same school as the medium of instruction.'
Schools which opted into the national system of education were thus encouraged towards bilingualism. The Razak
Report (1956: No. 20: p.14) recommended a number of positive and negative sanctions which were later adopted by the
Ministry of Education and other government departments of independent Malaysia. Briefly, these sanctions included:

a. making the Malay language a qualification at the various levels of entry into the government service;
b. using the Malay language as a factor for selection for secondary education;
c. making the Malay language compulsory in all government departments;
d. making the Malay language a requirement for anyone aspiring to a scholarship from public funds;
e. providing bonuses in government service to encourage a more rapid acquisition of the language;
f.

varying grants to schools depending in part on the successful learning of Malay as and when adequate
facilities could be provided;

g. making the Malay language a compulsory part of teacher training courses and examinations;
h. not charging fees to pupils in adult education classes formed to study the Malay language.
The encouragement of the use of the National Language in teacher training and the caution regarding adequate
facilities were important because at Independence and long afterwards, there were insufficient teachers of the
National Language. Accordingly, directives were given to the Director of Education, asking that Malay or Bahasa
Melayu be made a 'principal subject' in the Higher School Certificate, that special bursaries for the study of Malay be
provided at the university and that specialized courses in Malay be introduced into teacher training colleges (Razak
Report, 1956).
In 1960, the next educational report, the Rahman Talib Report, further recommended that inducements should be
offered to qualified teachers already in school to study the Malay language or, as it was then known, the National
Language. These teachers should ultimately qualify themselves to teach through the medium of the National
Language.
The reason why there was such a heavy emphasis on the learning of Malay was, as has been stated, to make Malay
the national language of the newly independent country which, until that time, had no common language among its
very diverse population. There was a belief that a common language would create a common culture and so create a
new national identity. The reason given for studying English was economic. 'No secondary school pupil shall be at a
disadvantage in the matter either of employment or of higher education in Malaya or overseas as long as it is
necessary to use the English language for these purposes' (Razak Report, 1956).
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To accomplish all this, the education service was also restructured.

The Razak Report (1956) also put forward an important policy which was to change the fabric of education in
Malaysia and guide education in Malaysia up to the present. There were two aspects of this policy. The first was a
policy decision to convert the then government schools into 'Standard schools by the introduction of National
Language streams, and to convert both government and aided schools to standard-type schools by the use of
appropriately trained teachers'. This policy decision was later interpreted to mean that all schools in Malaysia were to
be taught in the medium of the National Language.
One result of the Razak Report was the establishment of independent Malaysia's first, but short-lived bilingual
schools, having a dual medium of instruction in English and Malay. These schools were mainly English medium
schools which started classes whose medium of instruction was Malay. The government also asked the University of
Malaya to consider the feasibility of introducing the Malay medium into university courses with the ultimate aim of
evolving a bilingual university in Kuala Lumpur' (Rahman Talib Report, 1960). The Rahman Talib Report of 1960,
although reiterating the nation's stand for bilingual education, was more explicit as to the type and features of
bilingual education it considered desirable. The guiding feature was nation unity through making the Malay language
the National Language. While reiterating the need for Malay and English 'to be compulsory subjects in the curriculum
of all schools', the Report also made it clear that primary education in all four languages should not be continued into
the secondary schools.
Realizing that conversion of a Malay medium of instruction would be extremely difficult without appropriate textbooks,
the report also recommended that the Ministry of Education appoint qualified teachers to translate books into Malay,
even if it meant offering financial inducements for them to do so, It is interesting to note that it was assumed that,
because they were trained teachers and, presumably, native speakers, that they would first, be able to translate
books from English into Malay and second, do so within a reasonable time'. One recommendation which is significant
for teachers of English is that 'research until 1965 should be concentrated on the Malay language and teaching of it
and that research into other languages used in Malaya and the teaching of them should thereafter be introduced'
(Rahman Talib Report, 1960).
Language Education in the 1960s and 1970s
With the implementation of the recommendations of these two reports, some problems were solved, but other
conflicts arose. English medium schools performed better than Malay medium schools did. English schools had
better physical plants and facilities, better qualified teachers, and spent much more per pupil than did Malay and
Tamil schools. Moreover, pupils attending those schools came from higher income homes and parents could afford to
contribute more towards their education (Dropout Report, 1973). British policy also encouraged differences between
the states so that certain states had better educational facilities than others. The west coast states of Peninsular
Malaysia were much better off, for example, than the east coast states of Peninsular Malaysia. But the Malaysian
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states in Borneo were the worst off, educational development coming to them only after they achieved independence
within Malaysia in 1963.
Those in the Malay medium and in certain states began to feel that they were being deprived of the assets made
available to English medium pupils. Various Malay groups in Peninsular Malaysia began agitating for an acceleration
of the enforcement of the national language policy.
13th May 1969, the country witnessed the most serious race riots in its history. In July, while the country was still in
shock from these riots, the then Minister of Education, Haji Abdul Rahman Ya'akub announced over national
television that in January 1970, all English medium schools would be converted into Malay medium schools, starting
from Standard 1 and moving up the education system with that group until 1983 or 1984 when conversion would be
complete. According to Goh Cheng Teik (1971) this declaration by the Minister was made without the knowledge and
consent of the Prime Minister or the Cabinet.
The English educated of all communities were greatly concerned with this new development. Education policy had
stated that Malay was to be made the main medium of instruction and somehow it had been assumed that English
would remain as a secondary medium of instruction. They now had to face the fact that while Tamil and Chinese
primary schools would continue to exist, English medium schools would be phased out.
Teachers in the English medium schools were hit the hardest by the conversion of the medium of instruction to
Malay. Although language courses had been offered to non-Malay teachers, three months' exposure to Bahasa
Malaysia was less than adequate to equip teachers to teach their subjects in Malay. Teachers also found the
translation of terminologies, especially scientific terminology, inadequate for their needs.
At the lower secondary level, rote memory became the major teaching style. Teachers learned a few facts by rote,
recited them to the class and then got pupils to read from their textbooks. Since the format of the lower secondary
public examination was an objective examination, pupils too, were encouraged to rote memorize facts and figures.
At the upper secondary level there were even worse problems. English medium teachers, who were normally more
than competent in their fields, were suddenly inadequate. In the sixth form or pre-university classes where much
more technical knowledge was called for, teachers found it even more difficult to communicate in Bahasa Malaysia.
Teachers who had scholarships abroad where they had been distinguished students in their cognate fields now found
themselves unable to function satisfactorily because of the language difficulty.
This situation resulted in stimulating an exodus of Malaysian teachers, an emigration which had really begun soon
after Independence by Western-orientated professionals. The preference was for Singapore and on a smaller scale
Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, and Brunei. Other teachers found another way out, they became teachers of the
English language. To make up for the phasing out of English medium schools, the government had stressed that
English would be taught as a strong second language and, if necessary, the time allotted to English as a subject in
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schools would be increased (Chai, 1977). Many teachers, despite the lack of training in methodology, began teaching
English in schools. Hardly any attempts were made to provide in-service training to upgrade their teaching
techniques.
In 1970, it was stipulated that a candidate must have the minimum of a 'pass' in Bahasa Malaysia (as the National
Language was then named), in order to qualify for the school-leaving certificate called the MCE or Malaysian
Certificate of Education. For the first few years after a pass in Bahasa Malaysia in the MCE was made compulsory,
the percentage of passes for the school leaving certificate examinations in the former English medium schools fell
drastically, mainly because of failure in the Bahasa Malaysia paper. Pillai (1973) reported that in 1972 more than half
the English medium pupils failed to obtain the MCE despite performing well in other subjects. The large number of
failures served to remind the public of the earnestness of the government to implement the national language policy.
The reinforcement by television is certainly true. A count of television time devoted to the various languages, done by
the researcher between the period 24 April-5 May 1984, revealed that 4,695 minutes had been devoted to
programmes in English; 3,635 minutes had been devoted to programmes in Bahasa Malaysia (including programme
summaries for the day, Islamic prayers and hymns, and various announcements); 350 minutes had been devoted to
Mandarin (two movies and about 15 minutes of news daily) plus 30 minutes devoted to one programme which was
scripted in a mixture of Chinese dialects with phrases in Bahasa Malaysia thrown in; 320 minutes had been given to
Tamil (two movies and about 15 minutes of news daily); 180 minutes (a movie and a mini-series) had been given to
Arabic (excluding prayers which begin and end daily broadcasts); and 150 minutes had been in Hindi (one movie).
Conclusion
In a conclusion, the British appeared to be confused as to educational policies in colonial Malaysia. Its concern was
with the Straits Settlements. The British wanted to leave the Malay States as undisturbed as the British economic
ventures would permit. Residents (or Governors) of the Malay States did as they pleased and each state developed
according to the philosophy of each particular Resident. Malay education in Perak and Selangor, for example, was
far ahead of the other Malay States, with Perak even further ahead than Selangor. The situation was complicated
even further because some states did not come under full British rule until later. In these states too there was a
difference in progress. Johor, which had rulers who kept in close contact with British royalty and had a British adviser,
was far ahead of other states like Kelantan, which had been under Thai rule, or even Sabah, which was under the
British North Borneo Company, whose main purpose in being there was commercial, and not to develop the country.
The Brookes who ruled Sarawak also had their own ideas about the 'natives' losing their culture and made hardly any
attempt to develop education in Sarawak.
The result was differences in the standards of education among media of instruction as well as among the various
states.

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The acquisition of English is seen as a necessary evil by most of the community. This attitude spills over to the
children is school, making it more difficult for them to have any intrinsic desire to acquire English. It is a middle-class
acquisition and to the middle class will go the spoils. Meanwhile, when we discuss falling standards, we need to
seriously consider whether the standard of English has fallen in the country as a whole, or whether standards have
fallen in the former English medium schools.
"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn."

Reflection
The journal was a historical review of education in Malaysia. It touched on issues on how the British policy has made certain
impact on Malaysias Education System. It also gave me an insight to the many reports and recommendations made by
various individuals and bodies regarding our education system. The content is relevant to me since I am a language teacher,
English teacher at that. The article has discussed many ups and downs of language teaching over the years. It was very
interesting how many of the teachers chose to migrate when Bahasa Malaysia was made National Language because of the
stipulation made by the ministry and thay cant cope with that. What I can really relate is education and the world around
change as in the children too, so our ways of teaching, approaches, techniques and methods need to be in tune with the
changes around us. If 10 years ago its okay to just just textbook, blackboard and chalk, nowadats you need more than that.
We must equip ourselves with new knowledge, update regularly so that we can master tricks of the trade to teach our
pupils better.
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher
inspires. ( William Arthur Ward)

Reference
Gaudart, H. (1987 December). The English Teacher Vol XVI; English Language Teaching In Malaysia: A Historical
Account retrieved from http://www.melta.org.my/ET/1987/main2.html

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