International Journal of Educational Development 32 (2012) 5364

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International Journal of Educational Development

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev

Democratization of secondary education in Malaysia: Emerging problems and

challenges of educational reform
Tan Yao Sua *
Centre for Policy Research and International Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords:
Educational development
Educational reform
Democratization of education
Secondary education

The democratization of education in Malaysia has come a long way since the early 1960s. In the early
1990s, the government decided to democratize secondary education in order to widen formal access to
secondary education, especially at the upper secondary level. It is the contention of this paper that the
widening of formal access to education may not lead to real access to education if effective measures are
not put in place. It is also the contention of this paper that the democratization of education that leads to
the massication of education or mass education should not be at the expense of educational quality and
excellence if it wants to have a more signicant impact on the actual outcomes of schooling. This paper is
divided into two parts. The rst part provides the background information on educational expansion that
stems from the democratization of secondary education such as enrolment rates, number of schools and
teachers as well as organizational adjustments. The second part examines the problems and challenges
of the democratization of secondary education in relation to issues such as diverse needs of students,
disciplinary problems, school dropouts, urban and rural disparity, preferential policy and educational
quality and excellence. All these issues have an impact on the desirable outcomes of the democratization
of secondary education as far as real access to education as well as equality and quality of education are
concerned.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The democratization of education or the universalization of
education in Malaysia began with primary education (Primary
Year One to Year Six) in 1962. Shortly after that, the government
decided to democratize lower secondary education (Secondary
Year One to Year Three). Further breakthrough in the democratization of education only came about in the early 1990s whereby
the government allowed more students to progress to upper
secondary education (Secondary Year Four and Secondary Year
Five). This democratization of secondary education has brought
about the transformation from an elitist to a universal or mass
secondary education (Lee, 2002). However, it has also brought
about a host of problems and challenges to the education system
with regard to its capacity to provide real access to education as
well as better equality and quality of education. These problems
and challenges need to be duly addressed by the government
otherwise the democratization of secondary education will be
deemed dysfunctional to all intents and purposes. This is primarily
because the democratization of education is not just about

* Tel.: +605 7212482/6016 4548111; fax: +604 6584820.

E-mail address: yaosua@usm.my.
0738-0593/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2010.11.004

providing more formal access to education. Lee (2002), for

instance, argues that democratization of education does not
merely imply the widening of access and scope and lengthening
the provision of education (p. 31). Invariably, the government has
to come out with effective measures to ensure that this formal
access to education is eventually translated into real access to
education given the fact that formally equal access to education is
not enough to ensure real access (Eide, 1982, p. 82). In addition,
access to education must lead to better equality and quality of
education. These problems and challenges are made more evident
by the fact that there are two dimensions in the democratization of
education, i.e., the horizontal and vertical dimensions.
The horizontal and vertical dimensions of the democratization
of education cover two entirely different aspects of educational
provision. Eide (1982) associates the horizontal dimension with
the quantitative aspect of educational provision and the vertical
dimension with the qualitative aspect of educational provision.
The horizontal dimension is rather straightforward as it involves
all efforts to secure access to educational institutions for increasing
numbers of individuals for an increasing numbers of years and
purposes. It basically deals with educational infrastructural
expansion and adjustments to meet the demand of the democratization of education. On the other hand, the vertical dimension
involves a different set of phenomena that includes the questions

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T.Y. Sua / International Journal of Educational Development 32 (2012) 5364

of how educational institutions actually interact with other aspects

of life, learning and production as well as how educational
institutions themselves operate.
While the horizontal expansion of education could be easily
achieved through efforts to open up and to expand educational
institutions, it is the vertical dimension of the democratization of
education that needs further attention. Eide (1982) argues that the
vertical dimension of the democratization of education has a more
profound impact on the actual outcomes of the democratization of
education. She is of the opinion that within the context of the
democratization of education, more attention should be directed to
the vertical dimension rather than the horizontal dimension. Her
argument is certainly valid as the horizontal expansion of
education would not bring about signicant outcomes if it is not
strengthened by concerted efforts to improve the vertical
dimension of education.
But efforts to improve the vertical dimension of education
within the context of the democratization of education are made
more difcult by the fact that the democratization of education has
often brought about the massication of education or mass
education. Meyer (1992) cited several problems such as school
dropout, learning retardation and ineffectiveness as well as the
lack of utility in correcting for youth unemployment that need to
be addressed by policy makers following the rise of mass
education. These problems stem from the fact that mass education
often comes with expanded bureaucratic measures to enforce
school attendance without adequate measures to deal with the
diverse needs of students. Lee (2002) maintains that the
democratization of education has to be strongly supported by
the restructuring of educational institutions to meet the diverse
needs of students. Indeed, formal access to education could only be
translated into real access to education if it takes into consideration the needs of students with different innate abilities and
interests. The requirement to meet the diverse needs of students is
put even more strongly by Bullivant (1992) who notes that
children are genetically endowed with different potentials and
they will inevitably perform and achieve standards differently.
Lee (2002) also argues that access to education should be
guided by the universally accepted aim of bringing about better
equality of education to uphold social justice. In this regard, the
narrowing of rural and urban educational disparity and the
educational advancement of disadvantaged groups should form
the underlying concerns of the democratization of education
otherwise many students from rural areas and from disadvantaged
groups will be deprived of further education despite the
democratization of education. The need to narrow rural and urban
educational disparity is quite self-evident as it has generally been
recognized that rural schools lack the much needed educational
inputs. But preferential policy in the form of afrmative measures
to advance the educational interests of disadvantaged groups has
always been a contentious issue. This is because policy that favors
one group over other groups has certainly gone against efforts to
ensure better equality of education among all groups within the
context of the democratization of education. Also, preferential
policy that results in the implementation of positive discrimination measures for certain groups will inevitably has the effect of
leading to negative discrimination against other groups (Bullivant,
1992). But from another perspective, it serves no practical purpose
if extended educational opportunity that stems from the democratization of education only benets those who are more
competitive than the others. Thus, a certain level of government
intervention is often necessary to ensure that disadvantaged
groups who are short of resources (including many of the resources
deployed in education), individually and jointly, can compete with
stronger groups on an equal basis. As Connell (2001) rightly puts it,
the legitimacy of educational competitions depends on some

belief in level playing elds (p. 472). Although Bullivant (1992)

cautions the counter-reaction arising from positive discrimination,
he, nevertheless, agrees that people should have equality of
opportunity, i.e., the right to compete on an equal basis (p. 321).
While disadvantaged minority groups are often the recipients of
preferential policy, there are also majority groups who despite their
larger numbers are disadvantaged in mainstream society. For
instance, the Afro-Americans in some parts of the southern states
who are an overwhelming majority yet socially, politically and
economically subordinate. Also, under South Africa now defunct
system of apartheid, the numerical majority were systematically
excluded from full social, economic and political participation
(Yetman, 1991). In Malaysia, the Malays who form the majority
group are also a disadvantaged group in terms of socioeconomic
mobility due to the divide and rule policy of the British colonial
government (Abraham, 1997). The need to address problems faced
by disadvantaged majority groups is made more urgent by the fact
that some of the most explosive issues in our world today are ethnic
conicts between privileged minorities and underprivileged or
supposedly underprivileged majorities (Rothermund, 1986, p. 1).
On the other hand, Eide (1982) raises the possibility that the
democratization of education may eventually compromise academic standards as a result of the massication of education. But
she is optimistic that with the provision of more resources to
schools, longer schooling hours, better trained teachers, availability of teaching assistants, smaller classes, better teaching equipments and individualized teaching materials, academic standards
could be maintained despite intervening factors such as socioeconomic status. Nonetheless, it remains a critical challenge to policy
makers to deal with the vertical dimension of the democratization
of education, especially to ensure that increased formal access to
education provided for by the horizontal expansion of education is
effectively translated into real access to education without
compromising academic quality and excellence.
This paper examines the dilemma of the democratization of
secondary education in Malaysia. It begins with the horizontal
dimension of the democratization of education in Malaysia. It then
discusses problems and challenges of the democratization of
secondary education in Malaysia by focusing on several issues
relating to real access to education and equality and quality of
education. These issues are associated with the vertical dimension
of the democratization of education and they have a crucial impact
on the actual outcomes of the students schooling processes.
2. Horizontal dimension of the democratization of secondary
education in Malaysia
Like most countries of the world, the horizontal expansion of
the educational sector in Malaysia is principally driven by the
conviction of the government to provide education for all in line
with a global trend that puts great emphasis on the universal
participation of education. Since 1945, the United Nations is
committed in one way or another to the principle of universal
participation in education. But where details are concerned, what
this principle might mean would shift in emphasis from period to
period (Jones and Coleman, 2005). In the case of Malaysia, the
different stages of the horizontal expansion of secondary education
detailed below are in tandem with the changing demands of
national development, especially in providing the required
manpower to spur economic growth. The horizontal democratization of education in the 1990s is perhaps one of the most signicant
educational reforms undertaken by the government. The opening
up of upper secondary education beginning in the 1990s was
underpinned by the need of the government to have more highly
skilled and educated manpower to meet the demands of national
development following the shift from an agro-based economy to

T.Y. Sua / International Journal of Educational Development 32 (2012) 5364

an economy driven by rapid industrialization. The impetus to

industrialization came mainly from foreign direct investments
(FDIs) by transnational corporations (TNCs). In 1993, the World
Bank cited Malaysia as the third largest recipient of FDIs among the
top ten developing countries in 1991 (Ghosh, 1998). Industrialization in Malaysia was initially driven by labor-intensive industries
and subsequently capital-intensive industries. Industrialization
picked up pace during the tenure of Dr Mahathir Mohamad (1981
2003) as the Prime Minister. Dr Mahathir launched the Wawasan
2020 or the Vision 2020 project in 1991 to ensure that Malaysia
achieved the status of an industrialized country by the year 2020
(Hilley, 2001; Khoo, 1995; Mahathir, 1991). This resulted in the
surging demand for more highly skilled and educated manpower.
In recent times, this demand has become acute given the
transformation of the Malaysian economy from a productionbased economy to a knowledge-based economy driven by
information and communications technology (ICT). As knowledge
becomes the most crucial factor of production in a knowledgebased economy (Masuyama and Vandenbrink, 2003; Gibbons et al.,
2004), the onus rests on the government to intensify knowledge
production. But Malaysia is lacking in this critical area. The
Knowledge-Based Economy Master Plan prepared by the Institute
of Strategic and International Studies of Malaysia in 2002 notes
that Malaysia was ranked low in terms of educated talents by the
World Competitiveness Survey (Institute of Strategic and International Studies, 2002). This calls for more rigorous efforts to expand
the educational sector, especially at the upper secondary level, so
that more students can proceed to a tertiary education to fulll the
need of the country for more highly skilled and educated
manpower.
The democratization of education in Malaysia began with
primary education in 1962 whereby students were provided with
six years of free education. Two years later, the government phased
out the Malaysian Secondary School Examination a secondary
school entrance examination, by allowing all primary school
students to progress to an additional three years of lower
secondary education. Prior to this, only about 30 percent of
primary school students managed to qualify for secondary
education (Ku, 2003). It was not until the early 1990s that the
government decided to further democratize secondary education
by allowing students to progress to another two additional years of
upper secondary education (Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia,
KPM, 2006). This was done by replacing the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia
(SRP) examination or the Lower Certicate of Education (LCE)
examination with the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examination or the Lower Secondary Assessment examination in 1997. The
PMR examination is partly school-based (Ministry of Education
Malaysia, 2001). Students sit for the examination at the end of
Secondary Year Three. This examination emphasizes coursework
based on projects as stipulated by the Malaysian Examination
Syndicate. School teachers are given the authority to assess these
projects and submit their assessment to the Examination Syndicate. This was a radical step by the government to move away from
a fully examination-oriented education system at the lower
secondary level in order to ensure that more students can progress
to the upper secondary level.
Since then, almost all Secondary Year Three students are
allowed to progress to Secondary Year Four and sit for the Sijil
Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination or the Malaysian Certicate
of Education (MCE) (equivalent of the O-level) examination at the
end of Secondary Year Five. SPM is the minimum qualication for
students to progress to a tertiary education in the private
institutions of higher learning in Malaysia. But these students
have to go through an extra foundation year before they are
allowed to take up a degree course. In certain public institutions of
higher learning, pre-university and diploma courses are offered to

55

SPM holders. For students who have gone through an additional

two years of pre-university education (Upper Six and Lower Six) at
government secondary schools and successfully acquired the Sijil
Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM) or the Malaysian Higher School
Certicate (HSC) (equivalent of the A-level), they can proceed to a
degree course at both the public and private institutions of higher
learning.
As a result of the democratization of secondary education, there
was a phenomenal surge in enrolment at the secondary level. From
1990 to 2005, the number of secondary students increased by 62.0
percent from 1.37 million students to 2.22 million students (KPM,
2006). Since 2005, the number of secondary students has stabilized
with minor uctuation. The number of secondary students stood at
2.23 million in 2006, 2.25 million in 2007 and 2.21 million in 2008
(KPM, 2008). The enrolment rate at the lower secondary level had
exceeded 80 percent since 1990 (KPM, 2006). By 2008, the
enrolment rate was 86.31 percent (KPM, 2008). Meanwhile, the
enrolment rate at the upper secondary level surged from 49.1
percent in 1990 to 72.6 percent in 2000 (KPM, 2006). By 2008, the
enrolment rate at the upper secondary level had increased to 77.72
percent (KPM, 2008). The increase in upper secondary enrolment
was most signicant during the period from 1990 to 2000. During
this period, the number of Secondary Year Four students increased
by 90.1 percent from 183,824 students to 349,521 students, while
the number of Secondary Year Five students increased by 96.1
percent from 177,587 students to 348,196 students (KPM, 2001).
To cope with increased number of secondary students, more
secondary schools were built by the government during this
period. Over a period of six years, i.e., from 1990 to 2005, the
government had built an additional 701 secondary schools,
bringing the total number of secondary schools to 2,028 (KPM,
2006). In 2006, the number of secondary schools increased to
2,045, of which 1,224 schools were located in urban areas and 821
schools were located in rural areas (Pendidik, 2007). In 2008, the
number of secondary schools further increased to 2,181 (KPM,
2008). Consequently, more teachers were needed to cope with the
increased number of students. From 1990 to 2005, the government
stepped up its effort to train more teachers. During this period, the
number of secondary school teachers increased by 88.5 percent
from 72,455 teachers to 136,598 teachers (KPM, 2006). In 2008, the
number of secondary school teachers further increased to 159,019
(KPM, 2008). But as detailed by subsequent discussion, the number
of teachers still fell short of the optimum teacherstudent ratio,
especially prior to 2008. Although the teacherstudent ratio had
reached optimum level in 2008, overcrowding remained an acute
problem in most urban schools due to the larger concentration of
student population in urban areas as well as the limited physical
space available for infrastructural expansion in urban schools.
Following the democratization of secondary education, the
government has decentralized the education system in order to
deal more effectively with the increased number of students and
enlarged educational structure. Education ofces at the district
levels were established throughout the country. These education
ofces are responsible for the smooth running of the schools, the
placement of pupils and teachers in schools within the districts and
the provision of professional support to the teachers. The role of
district education ofcers is to ensure that educational policies
made at the centre are strictly carried out at the school level and
the complaints and needs at the local level are duly conveyed to the
centre (Lee, 2002). Prior to this, the Ministry of Education and the
respective state education departments located at state capitals
(Malaysia is a federation comprising 13 states) were entrusted to
oversee the educational development of the country. Meanwhile,
administrative structure at the school level has also been
revamped to cope with ever-increasing workload. Administrative
duties were decentralized to reduce workload and to ensure better

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T.Y. Sua / International Journal of Educational Development 32 (2012) 5364

efciency. Three senior assistants were appointed to every

secondary school to take charge of academic studies, student
affairs and co-curricular activities. In addition, four senior subject
teachers were appointed to oversee four core subject areas, i.e.,
science, language, humanities, and vocational and technical.
In sum, the horizontal expansion of secondary education in
Malaysia is driven by the critical demands of the country for more
highly skilled and educated manpower to realize its aspiration to
become an industrialized country by the year 2020. It has
increased formal access to education, leading to a phenomenal
surge in student enrolment. Correspondingly, more schools were
built and more teachers were recruited to meet the increased
number of students. The educational administrative structure was
also revamped in response to this changing educational landscape.
3. Vertical dimension of the democratization of secondary
education in Malaysia: emerging problems and challenges
3.1. Diverse needs of students
With the democratization of education, students with different attributes and abilities are allowed to progress to higher
levels of education. Thus, the education system has to meet the
diverse needs of these students so that their formal access to
education could be translated into real access to education. One of
the most signicant measures undertaken by the Malaysian
government to meet the diverse needs of secondary school
students is the decision to opt for an open certicate examination
system at the upper secondary level. Apart from several core
subjects like Malay, English, Mathematics, Science, History,
Islamic Education (for Muslim students) and Moral Education
(for non-Muslim students), students are allowed to register for
elective subjects according to their academic ability and
interests. These elective subjects encompass Pure Science,
Islamic Studies, Applied Arts, Humanities, Additional Science,
Information Technology, Language and Technology. In addition,
another 39 vocational elective subjects are also offered (Ministry
of Education Malaysia, 2001). Such an open certicate examination system provides exibility in choice of subjects. Unlike the
earlier system, the SPM open certicate examination results are
not based on overall aggregates. Students are not classied into
different grades (Grades One to Three) based on their achievement. Instead, certicates awarded to students only specify
general achievement in subjects that they have sat for (Ministry
of Education Malaysia, 2001).
But there has been an unexpected delay in the implementation
of the vocational elective subjects mainly because of the huge
capital outlay needed as well as the acute shortage of qualied
teachers to teach these subjects. It was not until 2004 that the
government, upon receiving the much needed funding from the
World Bank under the School to Career Program, started to
implement these elective subjects. By then, the government had
streamlined them into 22 subjects covering areas such as
manufacturing, construction, home science, agricultural technology and computer application (KPM, 2006). Some of these elective
subjects include furniture and ttings, woodwork/carpentry,
signage, catering and food preparation, tailoring and fashion
design, landscape and nursery, domestic wiring, automotive,
refrigeration and air conditioning, facial and hair care, aquaculture
and food technology (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2008). But
the funding by the World Bank could only allow the government to
plan for the implementation of the vocational elective subjects in
123 schools by 2007, with an additional 57 schools by 2009 (KPM,
2006). The government will have to intensify its efforts to source
alternative funds to ensure that more schools are offering these
elective subjects.

Recent developments show that the government has backpedaled on the open certicate examination. It has now xed a
maximum ceiling of 12 subjects for the SPM examination
(Nanyang Siang Pau, 2009). This decision was taken following
the earlier controversy over the award of scholarships by the Public
Service Department (PSD) to high achievers in the SPM examination to pursue higher education abroad. The demand for the PSD
scholarships has been highly competitive. Many students took as
many subjects as they possibly could in the SPM examination in an
attempt to outbid other students. This had put the PSD in a tight
spot as some of the extra subjects taken by the students were not
relevant to their core areas of study. These extra subjects were not
considered by the PSD in the awarding of scholarships. Consequently, many students who had scored more As in the SPM
examination were unable to secure the coveted scholarships. This
had led to much discontent among them. Thus, the PSD was forced
to put a ceiling on the number of subjects in order to resolve this
tricky issue. Though driven by practical considerations, the
restriction on the number of subjects has gone against the original
aim of the government to implement the open certicate
examination at the upper secondary level.
The democratization of secondary education in Malaysia has
also led to changes in the way policy makers have looked at the
needs of students who are spastic, handicapped, visually and
hearing impaired as well as those with learning difculties. Prior to
this, these students were only provided with a basic education at
the primary level. Under the democratization of secondary
education, these students certainly have their basic rights to
progress to higher levels of education just like any other normal
students. In this respect, the Malaysian government has done the
right thing by establishing special education schools at the
secondary level. These schools offer visually and hearing impaired
programs, consolidated class program and inclusive education
program. In 2001, there were 79 secondary schools catering to
children with learning disabilities, 13 secondary schools catering
to visually impaired children and 40 secondary schools catering to
hearing impaired children (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2001).
The establishment of sports schools by the government has also
augured well for the diverse needs of the students, especially those
who excel in sports. This will help the students to nurture and
develop their full potentials. There are currently two sports schools
in Malaysia: the Bukit Jalil Sports School established in 1996 and
the Bandar Penawar Sports Schools established in 1988. These
schools cater to the secondary school students. Students in these
schools follow the same academic curriculum and sit for similar
public examinations just like students from other types of
secondary schools. However, their daily activities include intensive
sports training sessions (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2001;
KPM, 2001). The government is planning to build additional sports
schools to cater to more students who are talented in sports (KPM,
2006).
Apart from sports schools, the government has built special
schools for students who are inclined towards the performing arts.
There are currently two arts schools: one in Johor Bahru (in the
state of Johore) and the other in Kuching (in the state of Sarawak)
(Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2008). In 2008, the two schools
had a combined enrolment of 343 students, of which 172 were
Secondary Year One students and 171 were Secondary Year Two
students (KPM, 2008).
One special feature of the democratization of secondary
education in Malaysia is the increasing efforts by the government
to meet the needs of Muslim parents who prefer their children to
go through an Islamic education. The surge in the demand for
Islamic education in Malaysia is the direct consequence of the
Islamic resurgence that began in the 1970s (Chandra, 1987).
Subsequently, Islamic Education was incorporated as a core

T.Y. Sua / International Journal of Educational Development 32 (2012) 5364

subject in the national secondary school curriculum. In addition,

Islamic Studies such as Al-Quran and Al-Sunnah Studies and
Syariah Islamic Studies are also offered as elective subjects in
secondary schools (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2001).
Students who opted for these elective subjects are classied
under the religious stream. In 2006, there were 1966 classes
operating under this stream (KPM, 2006).
To meet the demand for religious instruction, the government
has also established National Religious Secondary Schools to cater to
Muslim students. These schools initially offered Islamic Religious
Education and Arabic Studies preparing students for professions in
Islamic religious affairs, education and law. They later expanded
their programs to include science and technology related subjects
(Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2001). In 2007, there were 55
National Religious Secondary Schools in Malaysia (New Sunday
Times, 17 January 2007). Most of these schools are fully residential
schools. Prior to their establishment, many Muslim parents sent
their children to private religious schools which conducted classes
after school hours. But the development of these schools was
hampered by problems such as shortage of teachers and nonstandardized curricular contents (Rosnani, 2004). The government
has recently embarked on a nationwide registration exercise to unify
and standardize the administration and curricular contents of these
schools by placing them under its fold (Hishammuddin, 2007). It has
managed to register 95 private religious secondary schools as fully
government-aided schools (KPM, 2006).
However, at the upper secondary level, the strong preference of
the government for science and technical education has undoubtedly worked against the diverse needs of students. Under the 60:40
streaming policy enforced by the government, 60 percent of the
students are streamed for science or technical education, while 40
percent take up arts education (KPM, 2001). Apparently, this policy
is driven by the governments urgent need to have more science
and technical-based manpower in order to achieve its aspiration to
transform the country into a fully industrialized country by the
year 2020. But the policy is overly ambitious and most schools are
under mounting pressure to meet the target for science and
technical students. In many cases, students who have not obtained
good achievement grades in Science and Mathematics in the PMR
examination are streamed for science and technical classes. This is
certainly not in the best interests of these students as they do not
have the academic ability and the aptitude to cope with science
and technical subjects. Also, many students who have shown keen
interests in arts subjects are not allowed to pick their own choice.
Despite all this, the target of 60 percent for the science and
technical stream has not been met. In 2000, for instance, only 27.7
percent of students were streamed for science and technical
education (KPM, 2001). It is then safe to assume that more pressure
will be exerted on schools to deliver the 60:40 streaming policy.
Critically, the government has not built more vocational schools
to cater to academically weak students who are unable to cope
with academic studies. In contrast to academic schools, vocational
schools are skilled-based and career-oriented. There was a change
of policy towards the vocational schools beginning in May 1995.
The government had accepted the move by the Ministry of
Education to convert vocational schools to technical schools in an
attempt to ensure that more students with technical and
vocational background could pursue higher education at the
tertiary level in order to provide more highly trained technical
manpower to the nation to realize the Vision 2020 project (Yahya,
2005). Prior to this, the government had given due attention to the
development of vocational schools. The number of vocational
schools increased from 57 schools in 1990 to 69 schools in 1995. In
1995, 17,639 students were enrolled in vocational schools. Upon
getting the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia Vokasional (SPMV) or the
Malaysian Vocational Certicate of Education, most of these

57

students joined the labor workforce as skilled workers. Some

continued their studies in polytechnics. But in 2000, the
government had opted to convert 64 out of 67 existing vocational
schools to technical schools (Mohd Fuad, 2007b). These technical
schools are in fact academic schools, which offer technical and
vocational elective subjects (Ministry of Education Malaysia,
2008). As a result of this conversion, academically weak students
are deprived of an alternative means of education.
The government has also not responded positively to the needs of
non-Malay parents who prefer their children to go through mother
tongue education at the secondary level so as to preserve their
languages and cultures. It is important to note here that Malaysia is a
plural society comprising three main ethnic groups: Malays, Chinese
and Indians. These ethnic groups have a strong desire to maintain
and propagate their languages and cultures. Although at the primary
level, the government has allowed the non-Malays to go through
mother tongue education by attending Chinese and Tamil primary
schools, at the secondary level, the government has only allowed
non-Malays to learn their mother tongues as a subject in the national
secondary school curriculum through the provision of the Pupils
Own Language (POL) classes. To the non-Malay parents, especially
Chinese parents, the POL classes do not bring about the desirable
level of Chinese language and cultural maintenance. Thus, a
substantial number of them have opted to send their children to
the Independent Chinese Secondary Schools (ICSSs) that teach
mainly in Chinese. There are currently 60 ICSSs in Malaysia with a
total student population of about 63,800 (Nanyang Siang Pau, 25
August 2010). These schools are privately funded by the Chinese
community and the academic qualications obtained from them are
not recognized by the government (Tan, 1988). Prior to the
enactment of the 1996 Education Act, the ICSSs fell under the
purview of the 1961 Education Act. The 1961 Education Act does not
recognize the ICSSs as an integral part of the national education
system (Federation of Malaya, 1961). Thus, the government is
neither obliged to give funding to these schools nor to recognize the
academic qualications obtained from them despite the strong
objections from the Chinese educationists who are the custodians of
the ICSSs. To the Chinese educationists, the marginalization of the
ICSSs by the government has categorically denied them their basic
rights to propagate Chinese language and culture within the
mainstream society (Tan, 2000). Although the ICSSs are now an
integral part of the national education system following the
enactment of the 1996 Education Act, which replaces the 1961
Education Act (Lembaga Penyelidikan Undang-Undang, 2003), the
government continues to marginalize the ICSSs and refuses to
provide funding to them and to recognize the academic qualications obtained from them (Santhiram and Tan, 2002). Arguably,
measures to curtail the full development of cultural diversity within
a plural society do not augur well for the democratization of
education as far as the aim to meet the diverse needs of students is
concerned.
Finally, the Malaysian government has not addressed the needs
of academically gifted students. There are no special schools
established for these students and this has raised concern over the
possibility that they may not be able to develop their full potentials
by going through the normal schools. Although the establishment
of special classes for academically gifted students has its detractors
who fear that special treatment for these students may give them
the advantage over other students and create an elite intelligentsia,
societies, nevertheless, need to develop and utilize the talents of
their most gifted members (Ballantine, 1997).
3.2. Disciplinary problems
As a result of the democratization of secondary education, many
students with minimum academic credentials are allowed to

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progress to upper secondary education. These students are unable

to cope with the largely academic upper secondary school
curriculum despite efforts by the government to move away from
a fully examination-oriented education system. Many students
create disciplinary problems in schools. These problems are often
reported in the media and have, of late, reached worrying
proportions. On 6 September 2007, for instance, a Chinese daily
reported that some students in a secondary school in the northern
state of Kedah were involved in secret society activities and
parents had voiced their concern over the safety of their children
who were under threat by these unwarranted activities (Nanyang
Northern, 6 September 2007). Emerging disciplinary problems are
inevitable following the democratization of secondary education.
As Lee (1998) succinctly puts it, out of a total of 300,000 students
who sat for the PMR, about 30 percent of those who got promoted
are considered as weak students. These students create a lot of
truancy and discipline problems in schools basically because of
their inability to follow most of the lessons that are being taught at
the upper secondary level (p. 87).
To address increasing disciplinary problems, the Ministry of
Education has come up with several measures. It has decided to set
up a national-level central committee and a permanent secretariat
to deal with disciplinary problems. It is also working closely with
the police to curb gangsterism among students involved in secret
societies. Meanwhile, it has provided the necessary channels
whereby disciplinary problems could be promptly brought to its
attention through on line facilities or via hotline, fax and short
message system (SMS). In addition, it has formed an actionoriented ying squad (special task force) that would tackle
disciplinary problems in schools with much greater speed (KPM,
2006). Despite all this, the Ministry of Education has been under
mounting pressure to address recurring disciplinary problems
leading it to call for all quarters to play a proactive role in tackling
student indiscipline, especially gangsterism, before it becomes an
epidemic (New Sunday Times, 1 August 2010).
While the above measures are certainly commendable, it is the
lack of resolve at the school level that has led to the persistence of
disciplinary problems. Measures to curb disciplinary problems at
the school level have not been overly successful. For one thing,
most teachers are not trained to handle this daunting task.
Furthermore, the increased tendency among problem students to
retaliate against teachers has resulted in many teachers ignoring
these disciplinary problems. Another reason that has led to many
teachers ignoring school disciplinary problems is complaints led
against them by overprotective parents (Vijaindren, 2010). In view
of this, teachers are reluctant to mete out punishments for fear of
reprisals from students and parents (New Sunday Times, 1 August
2010). As such, disciplinary problems are often left entirely to the
small school disciplinary board. Without the collective effort of the
teachers, schools are unable to deal effectively with disciplinary
problems. Although the Ministry of Education has appointed
fulltime school counselors, their numbers are small (most schools
have only one counselor in attendance) to have any signicant
impact in helping to curb disciplinary problems. The deteriorating
state of disciplinary problems has led to some quarters of the
Malaysian public urging the government to establish a special
department in schools to deal with emerging disciplinary
problems. They have also raised the critical question as to whether
schools have been too soft in dealing with these problems
(Vijaindren, 2010).
Another contributing cause to the school disciplinary problems
is the difculty faced by the government to reduce the average
class size at the secondary level as a consequence of the
democratization of secondary education, which has led to more
students progressing to higher levels of education. In 1990, the
average class size was 33.6. By 2005, i.e., over a period of 16 years,

the government could only manage to bring it down marginally to

32.3 (KPM, 2006). Given the large number of students per class,
teachers are unable to provide personal attention to problem
students as well as to take prompt actions against their disruptive
behaviors. These predicaments are well illustrated by Vijaindren
(2010): Most teachers have to move between six classes of 40
students each, that is a total of 240 different minds to handle. Some
schools have over 3000 students. How do you control that? The
problem of overcrowding is particularly acute in urban schools.
This is largely the result of increased rural to urban migration
following rapid urbanization of the country. In 2000, 62 percent of
the population lived in urban areas, as compared to merely 28
percent in 1970 (Tey, 2006). This urban population is estimated to
reach about 70 percent by 2010 (Malaysia, 2010).
It is clear that disciplinary problems created by academically
weak students indicate that they could not capitalize on the
extended educational opportunity provided by the democratization of education. There is a serious mismatch between these
students and the academic schools. Many of these students could
have been sent to vocational schools for a more practical purpose.
But as previously mentioned, the government has converted
vocational schools to technical schools and as such these students
are deprived of an alternative means of education.
3.3. School dropouts
As in the case of disciplinary problems created by academically
weak students, the problem of dropout at the secondary level could
also be attributed, among other things, to the failure of
academically weak students to translate formal access into real
access to education within the context of the democratization of
education. The relatively high dropout rate among secondary
students in Malaysia is certainly a cause for concern. But in a way, it
is expected, given the fact that the democratization of secondary
education has allowed students with low academic ability to
progress to higher levels of education. In 2005, the total nonenrolment rate from primary to upper secondary ranged from 4.3
percent (primary) to 26.5 percent (secondary) for a period of 11
years of education. Ofcial data from the Ministry of Education
reveal that for the 19881998 cohort (i.e., from Primary Year One
to Secondary Year Five), the dropout rate was 35 percent. Although
the dropout rate for the 19902000 cohort has been reduced to
20.2 percent (Marimuthu, 2008), it remains high. Dropout rate
differs markedly between rural and urban students. Based on the
cohort of student who attended secondary schools from 2000 to
2004, the dropout rates were 9.3 percent for urban students and
16.7 percent for rural students (KPM, 2006). The higher dropout
rate among rural students is largely the result of their disadvantaged position in terms of educational inputs. We shall come back
to this in another section of this paper.
Among Chinese and Indian students who are from the Chinese
and Tamil primary schools, the inability to cope with the Malay
language (the national language) the main language medium at
the secondary level, is a critical problem that often leads to school
dropouts (Santhiram, 1999; Tan, 2007). Most of them are
academically weak students who are allowed to progress to
secondary schools as a result of the changed assessment policies
following the democratization of secondary education. If not for
the democratization of secondary education, many of these
students would have dropped out of schools given their weak
prociency in the Malay language.
A survey based on the cohort of Chinese students from the
Chinese primary schools who were enrolled in the national
secondary schools in 1997 has alarmingly revealed that 25 percent
were unable to complete Secondary Year Five. Among the reasons
cited by this survey was the inability to cope with the language

T.Y. Sua / International Journal of Educational Development 32 (2012) 5364

medium at the secondary level (Sin Chew Jit Poh, 18 June 2006).
The lack of prociency in the Malay language is particularly acute
among Chinese students who come from the Chinese new villages
(Lim and Song, 1999). On the other hand, the problem of dropout is
even more severe among Indian students. It is estimated that about
26.5 percent or 39,680 students have dropped out of secondary
schools in 2004 (Yayasan Strategik Sosial, 2004).
Under the Malaysian education system, students from the
Chinese and Tamil primary schools have to switch to the national
language (Malay) medium upon entering national secondary
schools. As these students have only learnt the Malay language as
a subject at the primary level, many of them have not acquired the
required level of prociency to enable them to learn effectively in the
Malay language medium. The language medium has thus become a
barrier that impedes their learning processes. Language barrier has
been singled out by many scholars as an intervening factor that
blocks the free ow of students through the education system. Chai
(1971), for instance, argues that children who lack linguistic skills,
but are otherwise intelligent and capable scholastically, may be
disqualied and debarred from further education (p. 61). Although
the lack of prociency in the Malay language among the Chinese and
Tamil primary school students is a long-standing problem, it has
been compounded by the democratization of secondary education
whereby increasing number of students who do not have the
required prociency in the Malay language are allowed to progress
to the national secondary schools.
Also, students from the Chinese and Tamil primary schools have
to go through an extra year of language transition class, i.e., the
Remove Class, upon entering the national secondary schools. But
the Remove Class has not lived up to its expectation. Many Remove
Class students fail to improve their prociency in the Malay
language to a satisfactory level. This is because the implementation
of the Remove Class is hampered by poor quality teaching and
attitudes of the Malay language teachers (Jasbir and Mukherjee,
1990) and insufcient Malay language teaching periods as well as
inappropriate pedagogy (Koh, 1985). Thus, many Remove Class
students have not beneted from the extra language transition
year that they have gone through (Santhiram, 1999; Tan, 2007). In
1997, 10.7 percent of the Remove Class students were unable to
make it to Secondary Year One (KPM, 2001).
Given the above, there is an urgent need to revamp the Remove
Class. But the government is seemingly unaware of such a pressing
need. Instead, driven by the democratization of secondary
education, it has marginalized the Remove Class. Beginning in
the mid-1990s, more students were allowed to skip the Remove
Class. These students included those who had not acquired good
achievement grades in the Malay language in the Ujian Penilaian
Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) or the Primary School Assessment Text a
common public examinations taken by primary school students at
the end of their primary education. Prior to this, only students who
had acquired good achievement grades in the Malay language (and
other subjects) were allowed to skip the Remove Class. As a result
of this, Remove Class enrolment had dropped markedly. In 1990,
there were 89,221 Remove Class students. By 2000, the number of
students had dropped by more than 50 percent to 42,219 (KPM,
2001). By 2008, there were only 28,198 students attending the
Remove Class (KPM, 2008). The marginalization of the Remove
Class is certainly not in the best interests of non-Malay students,
though many of them are happy that they are not required to go
through an extra year of schooling. However, the fact remains that
they have to pay for their lack of prociency in the Malay language
when they progress to higher levels of secondary education.
While the government has marginalized the Remove Class, it
has, nonetheless, implemented a new program in 2006, which will
benet the non-Malay students in terms of enhancing their
prociency in the Malay language. The new program comes in the

59

form of Kelas Intervensi Awal Membaca dan Menulis (KIA2M) or

Early Reading and Writing Intervention Classes. The target group is
picked from Primary Year One students who do not have the basic
reading and writing skills in the Malay language. The participants
of this program are chosen through a screening test. These students
are then given special attention to improve their basic skills in the
Malay language for a period of three to six months. The aim is to
ensure that all Primary Year One students are able to read and
write in the Malay language (Mazlan, 2006; Ministry of Education
Malaysia, 2008). The implementation of this early intervention
program involves all primary schools. Thus, non-Malay students
who are weak in the basic skills of the Malay language will be able
to improve their prociency before they transit to the national
secondary schools. This early intervention program has the
potential to help reduce the number of dropouts among nonMalay students at the secondary level so that they can capitalize on
the extended educational opportunity provided by the government through the democratization of secondary education. Apart
from this, the recent introduction of the Program Literasi dan
Numerasi (LINUS) or the Literacy and Numeracy Program by the
government at the primary level will also help reduce dropout
rates among secondary students who lack the basic reading,
writing and arithmetic (3Rs) skills. This program aims to ensure
that 90 percent of Primary Year One students have acquired the
necessary basic skills by 2010 (Pendidik, 2010).
3.4. Urban and rural disparity
There has been a great disparity between urban and rural schools
in Malaysia in terms of supply of teachers as well as infrastructural
and ICT facilities. This disparity has affected real access to education
as well as equality and quality of education among rural students and
in the process, has created an achievement gap. It has become more
acute with the democratization of secondary education where more
rural students are allowed to progress to higher levels of education. In
contrast to urban students, these students generally lack social and
cultural capitals to facilitate their educational mobility. As early as the
1970s, the Dropout Report released by the Ministry of Education had
noted the debilitating effects of the socioeconomic environment on
the educational mobility of rural students (Murad, 1973). Thus, rural
students tend to rely heavily on intervention measures undertaken
by schools to see through their educational processes. The Malaysian
government is aware of the educational disparity between urban and
rural schools. The bridging of this disparity has become one of the
main concerns of the National Educational Development Blueprint
(20062010) (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2008).
One of the consequences of the disparity between urban and
rural schools in Malaysia is performance in public examinations
whereby urban students have consistently outperformed rural
students. In 2005, for instance, the passing rate of rural students in
the PMR examination was 60.38 percent, while the passing rate of
urban students was 67.3 percent (Pendidik, 2007). Although the
performance of students in public examinations is inuenced by
many factors, some of which are external factors such as parental
support and socio-cultural environment, the school-based factors
like quality of teachers, facilities and other resources have certainly
played a major role in inuencing their performance. In view of
this, the government has established special model schools to cater
to potential rural students. This special model schools are fully
residential schools and they combine primary school students with
secondary school students within the same school premises under
the same school administration. There are currently 12 special
model schools in the country attended by 1,117 primary school
students and 10,598 secondary school students (Ministry of
Education Malaysia, 2008). Through this intervening measure,
the government aims to ensure the smooth transition to secondary

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education among potential rural primary school students by

providing them better school environment and facilities so that
they could perform well in public examinations and enhance their
educational mobility.
Many rural schools in Malaysia face serious shortage of
teachers. This problem stems mainly from the general lack of
interest among teachers to serve in rural areas. New teachers who
are sent to rural areas will try to request for a transfer to urban
areas once they have served the minimum number of years as
stipulated by the Ministry of Education. Indeed, poor basic
amenities and infrastructural facilities have discouraged many
teachers to prolong their service in rural areas (Nanyang Siang Pau,
9 August 2010). Consequently, many rural schools are deprived of
experienced teachers who could provide better educational inputs.
This problem is particularly acute in remote areas in the states of
Sabah and Sarawak. To address this problem, the government has
increased special monetary incentives, built more teachers
quarters and improved basic amenities and infrastructural
facilities in an attempt to lure more teachers to serve in remote
areas (KPM, 2006). As a long-term solution, the Ministry of
Education has increased the intake of trainee teachers from these
two states (Nanyang Siang Pau, 9 August 2010).
Secondary schools in urban areas in Malaysia generally have far
better infrastructural facilities than those in rural areas. Rural
schools, especially those locate in remote areas, do not have basic
amenities such as water, electricity and telephone lines (KPM,
2001). Ofcial data reveal that in 2006, 28 rural secondary schools
had no electricity supply, 68 rural secondary schools had no supply
of clean water, 748 rural secondary schools had no computer labs,
25 rural secondary schools had no science labs, 784 rural
secondary schools conducted double session classes (lack of
classrooms to accommodate students in a single session) and 26
rural secondary schools had to share premises with other schools
(KPM, 2006). In the main, infrastructural development of rural
schools is often hampered by delay. Among reasons cited for this
delay are difculty to transport building materials and escalation
of building costs (KPM, 2001).
The digital divide between urban and rural schools in Malaysia
has serious implications on the learning processes of students. The
Ninth Malaysia Plan (20062010), a ve-year national development
plan launched in March 2006, has recognized the importance of
ensuring that Malaysia moves towards embracing the digital age by
establishing a National e-Learning Consultative Committee (NeLCC)
to formulate and implement more coordinated and coherent public
sector e-learning initiatives (Malaysia, 2006). Given that e-learning
has now become a core element of teaching and learning in the
Malaysian education system, the lack of ICT facilities in rural areas
has certainly disadvantaged rural students. The Ministry of
Education has attempted to narrow this digital divide by building
more computer labs in rural schools. It has also supplied more
computers to rural schools as well as installed broad band Schoolnet
to provide coverage to these schools. More importantly, it is in the
process of transforming rural schools into smart schools (schools
driven by the use of ICT) (KPM, 2006). The need to narrow the digital
divide is made more urgent given the transformation of the
Malaysian economy from a production-based economy to a
knowledge-based economy (Institute of Strategic and International
Studies, 2002). Thus, the government needs more knowledge
workers who are adept at using ICT to spur economic growth.
3.5. Preferential policy
Preferential policy has been one of the salient features of the
Malaysian education system. It could be traced to the implementation of the New Economic Policy (NEP) (19711990). The NEP
was launched to address the disadvantaged socioeconomic

position of the Malays (Gomez and Jomo, 1997). One of the main
reasons was that the Malays, especially rural Malays, were
deprived of the much needed educational mobility during the
colonial period. As a result of the divide and rule policy of the
British colonial government, they were largely conned to a
system of Malay education that did not go beyond the rudimentary
level. Apart from conning them in their social milieu (Haris,
1983), the British colonial administrators were wary of creating a
class of political malcontents capable of overthrowing them
(Stevenson, 1975). In line with the divide and rule policy, the
British did not stop the non-Malays (Chinese and Indians) from
pursuing their mother tongue education. But the non-Malays,
especially the urban-based Chinese, were also given the opportunities to attend English schools, which were mainly located in
urban areas. This had beneted the Chinese as English education
was the best means of social mobility during the colonial period. It
was the only type of education that prepared students for higher
education. Even without a higher education, a working knowledge
of the English language would help in employment as a clerk in the
government service or commercial rms. However, for those who
had gone through Chinese education, their socioeconomic mobility
was also guaranteed by the fact that Chinese school graduates,
especially those with Senior Middle Three (equivalent to Grade 11)
qualications, were sought after for clerical and management
posts in the Chinese commerce and industrial sectors in urban
areas (Chai, 1971). Consequently, the Chinese had surged ahead of
the Malays in terms of socioeconomic mobility through the
provision of education.
In the aftermath of the May 13 racial riots, the lack of
socioeconomic mobility through the provision of education among
the Malays has become one of the underlying concerns in the
implementation of the NEP by the Malay dominated government.
One of the main reasons that sparked the racial riots after the hotly
contested 1969 General Election was that there was no marked
improvement in Malay educational mobility since the country
attained its independence in 1957. Although prior to independence, the Malays were given the assurance that the Malay
language would be made the main medium of instruction in the
national education system (see Federation of Malaya, 1956), the
implementation, especially the establishment of Malay secondary
schools, was too slow to have any signicant impact on their
educational mobility. Instead, the government continued to give
emphasis to English education (Roff, 1967). The height of Malay
resentment against the governments language policy was the
enactment of the National Language Act in 1967. Although the Act
recognized the Malay language as the sole ofcial language, it,
nevertheless, allowed the continued use of English for ofcial
purposes (Haris, 1983; von Vorys, 1976). Malay resentment was
also fuelled by the demand of the Chinese educationists to
establish a Chinese medium university a move considered by the
Malays as an outright challenge to the supreme status of the Malay
language in this country. Racial tensions were heightened as a
result of intense politicking over the language and educational
issues during the campaigns leading to the 1969 General Election
(Vasil, 1972). Race riots broke out on May 13, 1969 when elections
results showed that the Chinese had made impressive political
gains in several states at the expense of the Malays (see Comber,
1986; Goh, 1971; National Operations Council, 1969 for detailed
accounts of the race riots).
Although the democratization of education should ideally be
grounded on the universally accepted principle of equality of
education, equality of education should not be at the expense of
the disadvantaged groups. It is for this reason that afrmative
measures were implemented for the Malays in Malaysia under the
aegis of the NEP. As a concerted effort to improve the educational
mobility of the Malays, the government has built fully residential

T.Y. Sua / International Journal of Educational Development 32 (2012) 5364

science schools for them in almost every state in Malaysia. These

schools offered only pure science electives since the raison detre
for their establishment was to provide educational opportunity for
the advancement of Malays in the pure and applied sciences
(Rosnani, 2004). Only a small number of non-Malays, i.e., about 10
percent, are allowed to enter these schools.
Apart from the government, the Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA)
or the Council of Trust for the Indigenous People has also been
strongly involved in improving educational mobility of the Malays
under the aegis of the NEP. MARA was a statutory body
transformed from the Rural Industrial Development Authority
(RIDA) established in 1954. Although MARA was set up primarily to
help the Malays to engage in the business sector, it got involved
with the educational advancement of the Malays. MARA established fully residential MARA Junior Colleges for the Malays. In
2005, enrolment in the MARA Junior Science Colleges was 20,162,
of which 8,017 were lower secondary students and 12,145 were
upper secondary students (Malaysia, 2006). There are currently a
total of 45 Mara Junior Science Colleges spread across Malaysia.
Like the fully residential science schools, only about 10 percent of
non-Malay students are allowed to enter the MARA Junior Colleges.
The fully residential science schools and the MARA Junior
Colleges are in fact premier schools attended by Malay students
who have to go through a stringent selection process before being
admitted into these schools. Students are provided with the best
facilities and teaching staff to ensure that they excel in their
secondary education. Surprisingly, these schools even allow
instruction in English to facilitate movement into higher education
abroad thereby subverting the aims of the National Language
Policy (Jasbir and Mukherjee, 1990).
The establishment of the fully residential science schools and
the MARA Junior Colleges for the Malays has become a contentious
issue, resulting in tensions among the different ethnic groups in
Malaysia. The non-Malays are particularly unhappy over this
preferential treatment for the Malays. They complained that there
are two standards, one for the Malays and another for the others in
the Malaysian education system (Jasbir and Mukherjee, 1990).
While there is certainly a need for the government to help the
Malays who have lagged behind the non-Malays in terms of
educational advancement, the government must also realize the
need to provide more access to the non-Malays to enter the fully
residential science schools and the MARA Junior Colleges. This will
help to reduce their resentment over the preferential treatment for
the Malays as well as to bring about a better equality of quality
education between the Malay and the non-Malay students in line
with the basic tenet of the democratization of education. This will
also help to promote the ideals of national integration and unity in
a plural society like Malaysia.
3.6. Educational quality and excellence
One of the measures undertaken by the government to enhance
educational quality and excellence amidst the democratization of
secondary education is to improve the qualications of teachers. In
line with this measure, the government upgraded the historic
Sultan Idris Teacher Training College to the Sultan Idris Teaching
University in 1997. Meanwhile, through the collaboration between
the Ministry of Education and the public universities, a special
graduate program was initiated to upgrade non-graduate secondary school teachers to graduate teachers. In 2000, a total of 1,728
secondary school teachers had gone through this special program
(KPM, 2001). On 13 July 2005, the government intensied its
efforts to increase the number of graduate teachers by upgrading
all Teacher Training Colleges to Teacher Training Institutes.
Through this upgrading exercise, the Teacher Training Institutes
were allowed to confer degrees in education to their students. Prior

61

to this, they were only allowed to train non-graduate teachers at

the certicate and diploma levels. There are currently 27 Teacher
Training Institutes in the country. Concomitant with the upgrading
of teacher training facilities, the intake for trainee teachers has
become more stringent (KPM, 2006). Beginning in 2008, all
applicants who aspired to enter the Teacher Training Institutes
were screened by an aptitude test (Mohd Fuad, 2007a). This is in
line with the National Educational Development Blueprint (2006
2010), which has made the upgrading of the teaching profession
one of its main concerns (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2008).
The aptitude test will ensure that only applicants who have the
required attributes to become quality teachers are selected for
teacher training courses. Meanwhile, with the conversion of
Teacher Training Colleges to Teacher Training Institutes, the
government hopes that by 2010, all secondary school teachers will
be university degree holders (Mohd Fuad, 2007b). It goes without
saying that with better qualied teachers, classroom teaching and
learning will become more effective and hence lead to improvement in educational quality and excellence among students.
More signicantly, the government has also implemented the
cluster schools project to enhance quality and excellence in the
education system under the National Educational Development
Blueprint (20062010) (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2008).
This concept involves primary and secondary schools. Schools
designated as cluster schools are schools that would serve as
models for other schools to emulate. They are given unprecedented
levels of autonomy in stafng, enrolment and curriculum
organization. At the secondary level, clusters schools are grouped
under several categories that include fully residential schools,
technical schools, religious schools, premier schools, centennial
schools, schools located at Putrajaya (the nations main administrative centre) and Cyberjaya (the nations main multimedia
corridor), special modeled schools, special education schools and
schools not regulated by the Ministry of Education (international
and expatriate schools) (KPM, 2006). The rst phase of the
implementation of the cluster schools project was announced by
the Ministry of Education in March 2007. It involved 30 schools, of
which 17 were secondary schools. The second phase of implementation also involved 30 schools, of which 18 were secondary
schools. The third phase was recently announced by the Ministry of
Education. It involved 84 schools, of which 60 were secondary
schools (New Sunday Times, 22 November 2009).
Another measure to enhance educational quality and excellence is the recent decision by the government to rank all primary
and secondary schools in Malaysia. The ranking is based on the
schools results in the previous year as well as their scores in the
Standard for Quality for Education in Malaysia the Ministry of
Educations own evaluation system (New Straits Times, 29 January
2010). The ranking will form the basis for rewards and remedial
programs for head teachers and principals. It is estimated that
about two percent of high performing head teachers and principals
will be eligible for nancial and non-nancial rewards under this
ranking system. They will be rewarded by a RM7,500 payment, an
accelerated promotion and a Certicate of Recognition. Meanwhile, an estimated 10 percent of under-performing head teachers
and principals will be provided with training in an effort to
improve their performance (New Straits Times, 29 January 2010).
High-performing schools would be given a huge annual funding of
RM700,000. They would also be given the autonomy to decide on
school curriculum, 20 percent of student intake and management
of staff based on performance (Chandra, 2010). For a start, the
government has identied 20 high-performing schools, of which
14 are secondary schools. The government hopes to increase the
number of high-performing schools to 100 by 2010. Students in
high-performing schools are allowed to skip a year of schooling if
they have the academic ability to qualify for such a provision

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(Nanyang Siang Pau, 26 January 2010). On the other hand, for

under-performing schools, the government intends to seek the
help of the Teacher Training Institutes to revitalize them (Nanyang
Siang Pau, 6 February 2010).
Given the above, it is clear that there is no lack of effort by the
government to enhance educational quality and excellence amidst
the democratization of secondary education. These efforts will help
to ensure that the democratization of secondary education will not
lead to a drop in academic standards in the school system. But the
government needs to address the problem of overcrowding of
students that jeopardizes the quality of classroom teaching and
learning. As previously mentioned, there is no marked improvement in average class size at the secondary level, especially in
urban areas. This has hampered efforts to transform classroom
learning from the teacher-centred learning approach to the
student-centred learning approach espoused by the Kurikulum
Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah (KBSM) or the New Integrated
Secondary Curriculum implemented in 1988 (Malaysia, 2006).
This new curriculum is an extension of the Kurikulum Baru Sekolah
Rendah (KBSR) or the New Primary Secondary Curriculum
implemented in 1983. However, the government is determined
to reduce the average class size to 25 in order to improve the
quality of classroom teaching and learning (Nanyang Siang Pau, 19
May 2010).
One of the key factors leading to the overcrowding of secondary
students is the shortage of teachers. The teacherstudent ratio
serves as a good indicator to this problem. The teacher-student
ratio at the secondary level was 1:18.9 in 1990, 1:18.7 in 1995,
1:17.7 in 2000 and 1:16.2 in 2005 (KPM, 2006). These ratios are
well above the ratio as stipulated by the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), i.e., 1:14.6 (KPM, 2001).
However, in 2008, the teacherstudent ratio, which was at 1:13.9
(159,019 teachers to 2,205,495 students) (KPM, 2008), had nally
reached the optimum level. But this does not mean that
overcrowding has ceased to become a schooling problem,
especially in urban schools. Instead, overcrowding in urban
schools remains a critical problem that needs further attention
from the government. This is primarily due to the uneven
distribution of students between urban and rural schools as well
as the lack of available physical space in urban schools to build
more classrooms to reduce the average class size.
4. Conclusion
The democratization of education in Malaysia has come a long
way since the 1960s. However, it is the democratization of
education at the upper secondary levels in the 1990s that has
brought about a signicant impact in terms of educational reform
in Malaysia. But in accessing the impact of the democratization of
secondary education, it is not the horizontal dimension that
matters the most. Most of the problems and challenges discussed
in this paper deal with the vertical dimension of the democratization of education and they evolve around the issues of real access to
education as well as equality and quality of education. Efforts to
address these issues have become more complicated as more
students are now being allowed to progress to higher levels of
education.
The need to translate formal access to education into real access
to education is one of the main concerns of this paper. Real access
to education can only be achieved if the diverse needs of students
are fully met by the education system. In this regard, the Malaysian
government has adopted several measures to meet the diverse
needs of students. But there are still shortcomings in this area. For
instance, the government has tightened the open certicate
examination system by limiting the number of subjects that the
students could register in the SPM examination. Meanwhile, the

implementation of the 60:40 streaming policy has resulted in

many students being forced to take up science and technical
subjects without due consideration given to their ability to cope
with these subjects. In addition, the phasing out of the skill-based
vocational schools has deprived academically weak students of a
viable means of education. Perhaps, the government is of the
opinion that the introduction of the vocational elective subjects in
academic schools is an adequate measure to meet the needs of
academically weak students. But the fact remains that learning
vocational subjects as an elective subject and going through a
vocational education are entirely two different things. Furthermore, the continued marginalization of the ICSSs has gone against
the cultural needs of the Chinese students. Also, the lack of
attention given to academically gifted students has not augured
well for the diverse needs of students.
As a result of the democratization of education, many
academically weak students are allowed to progress to higher
levels of education. These students create a host of disciplinary
problems as they are unable to cope with academic studies. As
previously mentioned, the phasing out of the vocational schools
has left the government with no viable alternative to meet the
needs of these students. Although the government has introduced
several positive measures to deal with increasing disciplinary
problems, it is at the school level that measures to deal with these
problems are found to be wanting.
When more academically weak students are allowed to
progress to higher levels of education as a result of the
democratization of secondary education, this will certainly lead
to a higher dropout rate. The problem of dropout among students
from the Chinese and Tamil primary schools is particularly acute
due to their lack of prociency in the Malay language, which is the
main language medium at the secondary level. The government
has not recognized the urgent need to improve their prociency in
the Malay language by marginalizing the Remove Class, which
serves as an important bridging program to language medium
transition. But intervention programs are now being put in place at
the primary level to ensure that primary school students acquire
the basic skills (including Malay linguistic skills) before they
progress to the secondary level.
To ensure equality of education within the context of the
democratization of secondary education, the government has
attempted to narrow the gap between urban and rural schools to
improve the disadvantaged educational position of rural students.
The government has also implemented preferential educational
policy to help the Malays who have lagged behind the non-Malays
in terms of socioeconomic mobility as a direct consequence of
colonial rule. Without such a concerted measure, the Malays would
have not been able to compete with the non-Malays on an equal
basis. But such a measure has not been well received by the nonMalays who do not see the policy from the perspective of the
disadvantaged group.
Finally, the government is committed to enhance quality of
secondary education amidst the democratization of secondary
education. The improved professional qualications of teachers,
the establishment of cluster schools and the ranking of secondary
schools are all strong indications of this commitment. But the
government will have to intensify its efforts to reduce the average
class size, especially in urban schools, to further enhance
educational quality and excellence within the context of the
democratization of secondary education.
From the foregoing, it is clear that dealing with the demand of
the vertical dimension of the democratization of secondary
education is an arduous task for the Malaysian government. There
are still many unresolved issues. For one thing, the democratization of secondary education has to be underpinned by an inclusive
approach in which educational problems have to be viewed as

T.Y. Sua / International Journal of Educational Development 32 (2012) 5364

systemic problems rather than problems arising from the students.

Policy makers should refrain from a simplistic approach to
individualizing educational problems. Instead, they should address
systemic barriers that lead to these problems (Sefa Dei, 2009). For
instance, from the perspective of learning difculties faced by weak
students, Baker (1993) notes that these difculties may be apparent
learning difculties and not real learning difculties. He is of the
view that the root causes of apparent learning difculties may be
much less in the students and much more in the school or in the
education system. He further stresses that apparent learning
difculties can be attributed to an unsympathetic education system
and, therefore, they are largely system-generated and schoolgenerated learning problems. Thus, by adopting a more inclusive
approach towards the provision of education, the Malaysian
government will be able to come out with new and effective
measures to deal with some of the problems that stem from the
vertical dimension of the democratization of secondary education.
Acknowledgement
This paper was funded by a short-term grant (304/CDASAR/
539031) by the Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.
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