A parent's open letter to our Education Minister

The proposal to make History a compulsory pass subject in SPM for 2013 has sparked off debates by educationists, concerned parents, people's representatives, journalists and members of the public.

Education is very important in a child's development of character, attitude, religious inclination, tastes and so on, which would shape his or her way of life later.

For example, there are basic differences between education in a National Type school (Chinese or Tamil medium) and a National school (Bahasa Malaysia medium). Within a family, those educated in different types of school speak different languages, read different newspapers, display different attitudes and have different tastes in lifestyles.

For those who took the trouble to write against the introduction of History as a compulsory subject, the common factor seems to be the narrow views of the chosen authors. The fact that the author of a book which was found objectionable by the Indians, is being given an award by Perkasa, seems to confirm this.

Azmi Sharom, a popular columnist for being fair-minded, went to the extent of buying a history book before commenting! A parent, CJ Yong, took the trouble to read the books, analyze and write the following open letter to The Star:

An Open Letter to Our Education Minister

The recent focus given to history as a compulsory subject in the Malaysian school curriculum has driven me as a parent of school going children to gain an insight of what my children are learning in history as a subject in school. Before I summarise my findings (via reading my children’s history text books from Form 1 – 5), allow me to briefly take you through what is being taught as history in our government school:

Form 1 students are taught predominantly about the Malacca Sultanate with sporadic anecdotes of the other states. Penang is not mentioned at all and if I’m a student studying in Penang, I will seriously be wondering why. That is until I go to Form 2 whereby I will learn about the Straits Settlement, Tin Mining, Rubber Plantation and Exploitation by the British. Form 3 students learn about the Japanese Occupation, the Communist Party of Malaya, leading to Malaysia’s independence in 1957. A very detailed account of all the political parties in Malaysia is also elaborated. The 1955 Election Results seemed to be an important account in history as it is mentioned twice, in Form 3 and again in Form 5.

In Form 4, other than the first two chapters where one learns about the early civilization and the emergence of various religions, the rest of the year you will be doing an in-depth study of Islam – Islam Civilisation, Islamic Government in Medina, Formation of Islamic Government & Its Contribution, Islam in South East Asia, and Islam Influence in Malaysia. One could not be faulted to ask the question if one is learning history or religious study. I believe Azmi Sharom has expounded succinctly and rather ingeniously on this issue in his article in The Star on 30 Dec 2010.

Form 5 is an overkill on the study of nationalism and the development of race and nation. Out of 10 chapters, Chapters 2 – 8 bear the following titles:

Bab 2: Nasionalisme di Malaysia sehingga Perang Dua Kedua
Bab 3: Kesedaran Pembinaan Negara dan Bangsa
Bab 4: Pembinaan Negara dan Bangsa
Bab 5: Pembinaan Negara dan Bangsa yang Merdeka
Bab 6: Pengukuhan Negara dan Bangsa Malaysia
Bab 7: Sistem Pemerintahan dan Pentadbiran Negara Malaysia
Bab 8: Pembangunan dan Perpaduan untuk Kesejahteraan

I am making a moot point in not translating the above. And finally, in the last chapter in Form 5, you learn about World War I & II; the significance of which are reduced to only five pages in the entire five years of studying history.

I am completely perplexed! Is this all my children are learning in school? Does this not make them myopic and insular? Learning history is much more than learning about Malaysia. One needs to learn about world history. I talked to my children about the Hundred Year Wars, the Renaissance Period, the Mogul Empire, the Spanish Inquisition, the Boston Tea Party, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, Slavery and the American Civil War, The Long March etc and they have no inkling what I am talking about!

There is also an obvious disconnect in the overall flow of the subjects covered. Subjects are doled out independently without any link or correlation to significant events. For example, the Japanese Occupation in Malaya is studied independently and students are not made aware that the Japanese invasion is part and parcel of WWII. Another point I would like to make is that we must use proper English names for the organizations that are mentioned. For example, United
Nations is translated to Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu, which is fine until we use PBB as the acronym for UN. Which other country in the world would know what we are talking about if our students refer to UN as PBB? Another bad case of translation is NAM – Pergerakan
Negara-Negara Berkecuali; are we lost in translation yet? I am truly glad that our historians did not attempt to translate Commonwealth and instead use the literal “Komanwel”.

I shall not comment about distortions, half-truths or inaccuracies but I feel strongly that the spirit of the history text books should be written to reflect a fair and realistic account of history, plain and simple. The way it is written now, Malaysia is perceived as a victim of circumstance; we are always the good guys while the rest of the world are the bad guys. I am not sure why we need comments like “Singapura menjadi ‘duri dalam daging’ kepada Malaysia” is in our history text book.

What is the rationale behind our history syllabus? What is the reason for making history a compulsory pass in SPM? We have five solid years to impart history to our school going children and the government has decided that a Malaysian student should learn (almost) solely about
Malaysia and to use this subject as the platform to inculcate nationalism.

History is an important subject as we need to understand the past to appreciate the present in order to achieve the desired future.

I would sincerely like to call upon our Education Minister to re-look the entire history syllabus. We need to give our children a balanced view of world history and yet understand the significance of Malaysia in context. We owe it to our children.

CJ Yong

A Parent

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