Malaysia's Chinese schools adjust to rise in bumiputera intake

Halal food options, bilingual meetings with parents among inclusivity measures

- Lu Wei Hoong

Over the past 20 years, educationist Lwi Kian Keong has witnessed the demographics of Chiao Primary Chinese Chio School in his home town south of the Malaysian capital undergo a significant change.

In 2004, 80 per cent of the pupils at this rural Chinese school in Sepang, a township in Selangor state 70km from Kuala Lumpur, were Chinese. Today, 80 per cent of them are Malays.

A similar story is being repeated across Chinese schools all over Malaysia, with an increasing number of non-Chinese enrolments especially from the Malay community, though Mandarin is the main medium of instruction.

The number of bumiputeras studying in the country's 1,299 Chinese primary schools has risen to 18.52 per cent in 2024, nearly doubling from 9.5 per cent in 2010, figures from Malaysia's Education Ministry showed. Bumiputeras refer to the Malays and indigenous ethnic groups from Sabah and Sarawak.

Ethnic Indians in these Chineselanguage primary schools rose to 2.75 per cent of the total student population in 2020, against 1.67 per cent a decade ago, the figures showed.

In Malaysia, primary level education consists of national and vernacular schools. Malay is the medium of instruction in the national schools, while vernacular schools teach and communicate in Mandarin or Tamil. Both schools follow the same syllabus, barring the language subjects.

Once done with primary school, the students can attend the 82 Chinese government secondary schools (also known as SMJK), 63 independent Chinese high schools or national secondary schools. After that, they can head to the three Chinese community-based tertiary education institutions, private universities or government universities if they meet the local requirements.

The big shift in demographics has led Chinese schools to look for ways to accommodate the new students and their parents, while ensuring that the schools' ethnic identity, values and culture remain intact.