When Malaya was under British rule, the government at that time identified a need to establish a systematic school system that would offer quality education for all races in the country. However, it was made to satisfy British interests but not to the nation as a whole. In 1950, the Barnes Committee headed by LJ Barnes (Oxford University) was established to conduct a study on meeting such a requirement. The 1951 Barnes Report highlighted the following recommendation: All Malay and English schools would be preserved and should be given priority. Vernacular schools would be closed and replaced by the National School. English would be the medium of instruction at the secondary level. Free education was guaranteed in the National School.
The Chinese and the Indian communities were dissatisfied with Barnes’ recommendations and insisted that the national education system should take into consideration the interests of the Chinese and the Indian communities as well. The Fenn-Wuu Committee was then established to revise the education needs for the Chinese community. The committee recommended that the Malay, Chinese and Indian languages should simultaneously be a medium of instruction in the school system and therefore, all schoolbooks should use those languages. However, the government objected to the proposal. At the same time, the British administration implemented its own education policy that meets their interest but not the nation’s interest.
At the end of British colonialism era, society, especially several groups of educated Malays, initiated a move to revamp the colonial education system. The essence of having a new national education policy was to make it more representative of the nation. The aspect of nation building was seen by the movement as a priority when formulating an education policy. The government then agreed to set up a special committee led by Tun Abdul Razak (first minister of education and the second prime minister of Malaysia) to make several recommendations. This committee was composed of several high-level government officials and education experts from various groups (local and foreign). This comprehensive recommendation was known as the Razak Report 1956. The objective of this committee was to establish a national education system that would promote cultural, social, economic and political development that would be accepted by the nation as a whole, having regarded the Malay language as the national language. Hence, the Malay language should be the main medium of instruction in the education system. The content of the Razak Report was later to become the basis for establishing the Education Ordinance 1957. Furthermore, the Malaysian Government at that time had started to make several evolutionary changes especially on the education curriculum to suit the aspirations of projecting a Malaysian outlook. It was thought that the Education Policy should reflect a feeling of satisfaction and an endorsement of all the different communities in Malaysia.
Later, to speed up the process of national integration and unity, the Rahman Talib Report was made by a new special committee to review the education policy in 1960 and that became the basis in establishing the Education Act 1961. The act provided the legal basis for enabling the national language to be a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools and in all training institutions. The act required pupils to have a satisfactory grade in the national language subject in order to be awarded a certificate for public education examination, especially at the end of the lower and upper secondary levels. All schools using English as the medium of instruction were gradually adopting the national language. Since Malay is the national language and it had already been accepted by the Chinese, Indian and other communities; it was designed that such enforcement will enable Malaysian society as a whole to uphold the national language and the people be made proficient in the use of the language.
In 1979, a report from the Special Cabinet Committee chaired by Dr Mahathir Mohammad (Mahathir Report), who was the minister of education at that time (in 1981 he became the Prime Minister), was finalised after a six-year study. The objectives were to achieve national unity in a multi-ethnic plural society besides increasing the sense of patriotism, to produce skilled manpower for national development and to further extend the policy of democratisation of education in order to strike a balance in all aspects of education between rural and urban areas.
This report has become a guideline for reforming the education system in recent years. In 1995 and 1996, the Education Act was amended to give sufficient need to meet the challenges in the 21st century besides making Malaysia an international centre of excellence in education.
The current national education philosophy requires that it is essential to develop potential individuals who are responsible and cap