School Effectiveness and School Improvement 0924-3453/99/1001-0086$15.

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1999, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 86–98 © Swets & Zeitlinger

Education in Malaysia: Towards Vision 2020

Molly N.N. Lee

School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the relationship between educational development and the socio-
political and economic context of Malaysia. Under the rubric of Vision 2020, there is a
liberalisation of educational policies leading to the democratisation, privatisation and
decentralisation of the Malaysian educational system. In conjunction with mass educa-
tion, both the primary and secondary school curricula were revised with great emphasis on
the development of an all-round individual, the acquisition of basic skills, the inculcation
of moral values, and the abolishment of early specialisation. The educational administra-
tive system has been decentralised to promote school-based management and teacher
empowerment. Furthermore, the private sector has been encouraged to play an active role
in providing higher education.

SOCIO-POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT

Malaysia is a plural society with a population of about 18.2 million in

1995. The ethnic composition is 55% Bumiputra1, 34% Chinese, 10%
Indian, and 1% “others” (which include Sri Lankans, Eurasians, and other
communities) (Ministry of Finance, 1986). Malaysia is an ex-British colo-
ny which gained its political independence in 1957. Today, Malaysia has a
democratic political system, ruled by a coalition government under the
banner of the National Front which comprises of various political parties
representing the three major races in the country.
Malaysia has a rapidly developing economy which is fast becoming
industrialised. In the past, Malaysia depended on its natural resources like
tin, oil, timber and agricultural products like rubber, oil palm, and cocoa;

1. Bumiputra means “native of the soil”. This term is used to include the Malays and
other indigenous tribes such as Kadazandusuns, Muruts, Bajaus and other tribes in
Sabah; Dayaks, Ibans, Penans, and others in Sarawajk.

Correspondence: Molly N.N. Lee, School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malay-
sia, Penang 11800, Malaysia.
 EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA 87

but now Malaysia has joined the other newly-industrialising economics in

East Asia by expanding its manufacturing and service sectors. Malaysia is
aggressively pursuing an export-oriented growth strategy by encouraging
foreign investments in its economy. Today, besides raw materials, Malay-
sia also exports manufactured products like televisions, air-conditioners,
cars, electronic chips and many other items. The gross national product
per capita is US$3,406 which ranks sixth in the Asian region, and the
economic growth rate has been above 8% for the last 6 consecutive years
(Spaeth, 1995).
In January 1991, the Malaysian government unveiled its Vision 2020,
the year by which Malaysia would achieve the status of an industrialised
and developed country in terms of its economy, national unity, social
cohesion, social justice, political stability, system of government, quality
of life, social and spiritual values, national pride and confidence (Ma-
hathir, 1991). Towards achieving Vision 2020, the government has also
identified strategies to meet the following nine challenges:

(1) Establishing a united Malaysian nation with a sense of common and

shared destiny.
(2) Creating a psychologically liberated, secure, and developed Malay-
sian society.
(3) Fostering a democratic society.
(4) Establishing a fully moral and ethical society.
(5) Establishing a mature liberal and tolerant society.
(6) Establishing a scientific and progressive society.
(7) Establishing a fully caring society and a caring culture.
(8) Ensuring an economically just society.
(9) Establishing a prosperous society (Mahathir, 1991, pp. 2–4).

Education is to play an important role in helping the country to meet the

above challenges of becoming a developed nation. Specifically, education
is perceived as promoting national unity, social equality, and economic
development. Education is an instrument for promoting and strengthening
national integration by inculcating a common and shared destiny among
the different ethnic groups, removing racial prejudices and encouraging
cultural tolerance, and establishing the use of a common national lan-
guage, that is, Bahasa Malaysia. As an agent of social equality, education
is to promote social consciousness and social justice by providing equal
educational opportunities. Education is seen as a means for social mobility
which forms one of the avenues for income redistribution and restructur-
ing the Malaysian society economically. The education system has an
88 MOLLY N.N. LEE

important role to play in supplying human resources for economic growth.

Besides economic prosperity, the schools are to help in developing a car-
ing society.
The purpose of this article is to examine the socio-political context of
educational reforms and review recent governmental policies pertaining to
educational practices and school improvement. The article also analyses
the relationship between educational development and changes in the wid-
er society, and provides some insights into future developments. The anal-
ysis shows that the 1990s witnessed liberalisation of educational policies
in Malaysia which have brought about democratisation, privatisation, and
decentralisation of the educational system from an elitist, state-controlled,
and centralised system.

MALAYSIAN EDUCATION

The Malaysian education system provides 11 years of basic education to

every child in the country. The educational structure is 6-3-2, that is, 6
years of primary education, 3 years of lower secondary education, and 2
years of upper secondary education. Ever since independence, Malaysia
has been striving towards universal primary and secondary education. In
the 1960s and early 1970s, much effort was channelled into the quantita-
tive expansion of the school system with many financial resources allocat-
ed to building new schools and training school teachers. Today the literacy
rate of the country is 74%, the enrolment rates for primary level, lower
secondary level and upper secondary level are 97.92%, 83.43% and
48.56% respectively (Ministry of Education, 1991). While in the past, the
education system only provided for 9 years of basic education, a recent
reform in the early 1990s has extended the basic education from 9 years to
11 years. Instead of sitting for a selective public examination at the end of
the lower secondary level (i.e., Form 3) and only about 50% of the Form 3
students proceeding to Form 4, today all the Form 3 students get promoted
to Form 4. This has changed an elitist school system into a system that
provides for mass education. The successful democratisation of secondary
education has resulted in an increasing demand for post-secondary educa-
tion and this in turn has brought about a rapid expansion of higher educa-
tion as reflected in the increased number of universities and a proliferation
of private colleges.
Besides the quantitative expansion of education, the early years after
independence also witnessed the emergence of a national school system.
As mentioned above, one of the major roles of the Malaysian educational
 EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA 89

system is to promote national unity among the different ethnic groups. To

achieve this goal, the school system has adopted a common language,
common curriculum, and common public examination policies. The main
medium of instruction in schools is the national language, Bahasa Malay-
sia.2 Although the media of instruction may be in Chinese and Tamil in the
national-type primary schools, their curricula are similar to those in the
Malay primary schools. Within the national school system there are only
Malay secondary schools and they all follow the same school curriculum
and students from these schools all sit for the same public examinations.3
To avoid regional discrepancies and to encourage national integration,
the Malaysian government has a tight control on the national school sys-
tem, not only in terms of a national school curriculum and a national
examination system but also in terms of finance and administration. The
Malaysian education system was a highly centralised and bureaucratic
system where most of the important policy decision-making occurred out-
side the schools. The Ministry of Education at the centre decided on the
allocation of funds to schools, prescribed and standardised what should be
taught in schools, transferred teachers in and out of schools, and formulat-
ed top-down school reforms.
Many of the far-reaching educational policies were implemented in the
1970s and 1980s and they were aimed at restructuring the Malaysian soci-
ety. Malaysia is a society divided by race, language, religion, culture, and
to some extent by occupational and regional differences. During the first
10 years of independence, the great disparity of income between the Ma-
lays and non-Malays led to the outbreak of racial riots on May 13th, 1969.
Since then, the Malaysian government has pursued various educational
policies which aimed at providing equal educational opportunities to the
economically disadvantaged groups, that is, the Bumiputras. Access to
higher education is often perceived as an avenue for social mobility, so the
Malaysian government implemented the “racial quota” policy whereby

2. Starting in 1970, all the government-aided English-medium schools were replaced by

Malay-medium schools, and by 1982, all national secondary schools and university
education were conducted in the national language. English is taught as a second
language in schools. However, the minority groups were able to negotiate with the
ruling Malay elite for the provision of primary education in Chinese and Tamil.
Today, there are government-funded Malay, Chinese, and Tamil primary schools. For
an analysis of the politics of language policies in Malaysia, see Lee (1993b) and Haris
(1990).
3. The pupils sit for the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) examination in Primary
6, the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examination in Form 3, the Sijil Pelajaran
Malaysia (SPM) examination in Form 5, and the Sijil Pelajaran Tinggi Malaysia
(STPM) examination in Upper 6.
90 MOLLY N.N. LEE

the ethnic composition of the student population in the universities should

reflect the ethnic composition of the country. To ensure that the poorer
Bumiputras, especially those in the rural areas, could gain access to higher
education, they were given special assistance in terms of secondary and
pre-university education and financial aids.
Besides widening access to higher education, efforts were also directed
to the improvement of the quality of education. The national school curric-
ulum underwent many reforms in the 1960s and 1970s. During this period,
many “prized-curriculum packages” like Modern Mathematics, Scottish
Integrated Science syllabus, Nuffield O-level Sciences, and Communica-
tion English syllabus were adopted from the West (Lee, 1992). Further-
more, the “comprehensive school system”, where students were required
to take a number of elective subjects like Industrial Arts, Home Science,
Commerce and Agricultural Science on top of a number of core subjects,
was introduced to the lower secondary level (Fatimah, 1977). Nearly all
these curriculum reforms were under strong Western influence and many
of these reforms did not produce the results expected and so, starting from
1982, the school curriculum was totally revamped right from Primary 1 up
to Form 5.

CURRICULUM REFORMS

The New Primary School Curriculum, often referred to as KBSR (in local
acronyms)4, was implemented in 1982 because of dissatisfaction with the
old primary curriculum which was thought to be too subject content-bi-
ased, emphasise too much rote-learning, to be too examination-oriented
and excessively dependent on textbooks (Lee, 1993a). The new curricu-
lum is intended to introduce new emphases in the objectives and content,
new teaching styles and new types of instructional materials, all of which
are aimed at improving the quality of primary education. The underlying
philosophy of KBSR is a “child-centred curriculum” which recognises the
importance of individual differences, individual achievement, and empha-
sises the overall development of the child (Azizah, 1987). KBSR empha-
sises the acquisition of basic skills and knowledge through a direct variety
of instructional materials, and practises a variety of pupil groupings. It
also recognises the need to cater for different levels of ability amongst the
pupils by means of remedial and enrichment programs and to practise
continual assessment of the child’s progress.

4. KBSR stands for Kurikulum Baru Sekolah Rendah.

 EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA 91

The KBSR was implemented progressively and the full cycle took 7
years from 1982 to 1988. In 1988, the Integrated Secondary School Cur-
riculum (referred to as KBSM)5 was introduced as a continuation of the
curriculum reform efforts at secondary level. The emphasis of the new
secondary school curriculum is on “integration” which stresses the teach-
ing of language and values across the curriculum (Abdullah & Kumar,
1990). New subjects like Moral Education (for non-Muslim students),
Islamic Studies (for Muslim students) and Living Skills were included in
the integrated curriculum. Another distinctive feature of KBSM is that
students are no longer streamed into Arts or Science streams. The new
curriculum has done away with early specialisation allowing students to
choose subjects from different groups of electives.
These curriculum reforms are not without problems and controversies.
When students are allowed to choose their own subjects at the upper
secondary level, many of them are shying away from the pure science
subjects. The ratio of students who opted for science subjects to those who
chose non-science subjects has dropped to an all-time low of 22:78 in
1993 (Ministry of Education, 1994). This has brought about great con-
cerns on the part of the government for fear that the vision of Malaysia
becoming an industrialised country may be jeopardised by a shortage of
scientific and technical human resources. As a result, the Ministry of Edu-
cation undertook measures to try to get the children interested in science
and mathematics at an early age. Science was re-introduced into the pri-
mary school curriculum in 1993 as a separate and distinct subject. Previ-
ously, under the KBSR, science was taught in a multidisciplinary ap-
proach as part of an integrated subject called “Man and His Environ-
ment”6.
Another controversy is the language policy. On the one hand, the Ma-
laysian government has taken upon itself to protect the “special privileg-
es” of the Malays and their economic interests by implementing the na-
tional language as the main medium of instruction in schools (Lee, 1993b).
On the other hand, the political leaders also realise the importance of
English as an international language for trade and the transfer of scientific
knowledge and technical know-how as Malaysia strives towards Vision
2020. This realisation has led the Ministry of Education to take concerted
efforts in trying to arrest the decline of English in schools. In 1995, the
Minister of Education announced that the English paper for SPM exami-
5. KBSM stands for Kurikulum Berpaduan Sekolah Menengah.
6. "Man and His Environment” was a combination of six areas namely, Local Studies,
Health Education, Science, History, Geography and Civics. This subject is now being
replaced by Science and Local Studies.
92 MOLLY N.N. LEE

nation (which is the equivalent of O-level) will be upgraded by increasing

its level of difficulty through the incorporation of some elements from
another English paper.7 This announcement has brought about mixed reac-
tions from different quarters. There are some who feel that this move will
again disadvantage the rural children who are generally very weak in
English while there are others who feel that the English language should
be given due importance and they support the move strongly.
The implementation of KBSR and KBSM also has its share of the
problems. Curriculum development in Malaysia has been highly central-
ised. Although the new curricula have been developed by a central agency,
the implementation has been decentralised with agencies at both state and
district level. However, the centralised control and hierarchical structure
of the Malaysian educational system is not conducive to decentralisation
(Lee, 1993a). Even though teachers, school heads, and school administra-
tors were given a lot of autonomy to implement the new curricula, they
seemed to be shackled by the traditional practice of waiting for directives
from the top rather than making independent decisions (Azizah, 1987).
They would rather rely on specific instructions from above so as to avoid
the risk of being accused of doing something wrong. Thus, the centralised
system seems to have results in “dysfunctional consequences” where teach-
ers became unresourceful and over-dependent on the ministry’s directives
and handouts (Noor Azmi, 1988).

DECENTRALISATION

As mentioned in the above section, there is a move towards decentralisa-

tion from a highly centralised and bureaucratic system. In line with the
decentralised implementation of the new curricula, the administrative or-
ganisation of the education system has also been restructured. Education
offices were established at district level and these offices were staffed
with officers responsible for the placement of pupils and teachers in
schools within the district, the supply of teaching and learning resources
and whatever professional support the schools needed. Their role is to
ensure that educational policies made at the centre are carried out at the
school level and that complaints and needs at the school level are commu-
nicated to the centre.
Decentralisation implies devolution of decision-making, empowerment
and enablement. Decentralisation of educational management can only be
7. The syllabus is an O-level English paper set by the Cambridge Examination Syndicate
in England.
 EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA 93

effective if schools are managed by personnel who have a high sense of

professionalism. Effective school leadership is essential for school-based
management. School heads are required to provide not only administrative
leadership but also instructional leadership. In the context of Malaysia,
school heads and their senior assistants are sent for management training
at the Institute of Aminuddin Baki. Furthermore, any teachers and admin-
istrative personnel are given scholarships to obtain a second degree in
Education. If decision-making were to be devolved from top to bottom
then personnel at the centre should learn how to “let go” whereas those at
the periphery must learn how to “take up” the responsibilities. But before
school heads or teachers are able to take up these responsibilities, they
must be equipped professionally. It was recently reported in the newspa-
pers that “schools can decide on their own operational details within the
parameters of policy guidelines” (“Schools ‘can decide’,” 1995) and that
“the Education Ministry is introducing a special course which prospective
principals and headmasters will have to pass before they are appointed to
their positions in the future” (“Prospective Hms,” 1995). Good school-
based management requires effective school leadership whereby school
heads are able to handle both internal school operation as well as the
school-environment interaction.
Teacher empowerment is integral to the decentralisation process. Teach-
ers should be given authority and power to make decisions and judgements
about what is best for their schools. Teacher empowerment will result in
(a) better and more appropriate decisions; (b) increased commitment and
enhanced teacher performance; (c) increased willingness for teachers to
assume responsibility for instructional results; and (d) most importantly
improved student achievement (Ministry of Education, 1992). To enable
teachers to participate in the decision-making process, extra grades were
created in the teaching career scale in Malaysia. Departmental heads for
various subject areas like science and mathematics, language, social stud-
ies, and technical subjects were established in secondary schools. Effec-
tive teachers are now appointed as “master teachers” and given a substan-
tial pay-rise: their role is to provide pedagogical guidance to their own
colleagues. Moreover, teachers are encouraged to carry out action research,
placing much emphasis on “practitioner knowledge” to improve their
teaching practices. Starting in 1993, action research has been identified as
one of the focused areas under the “Programs for Innovation, Excellence
and Research” (PIER) by the Ministry of Education. Under the PIER
project many funds are allocated for action research to be carried out at the
school level. In addition, the Ministry of Education is also striving to-
wards an all graduate teaching force for secondary schools, and there has
94 MOLLY N.N. LEE

been talk of extending the 2, year training for primary school teachers to
a 3-year diploma course. All these efforts are directed towards the empow-
erment of the Malaysian teachers.

PRIVATISATION

The liberalisation of Malaysian educational policies is not restricted to the

democratisation and decentralisation of education but also extends to the
privatisation of education. While in the past the Malaysian government
had very strict control over the establishment of new institutions of higher
learning, in recent years, it has been more liberal in encouraging the “pri-
vatisation” of the education sector. In the 1980s, there was a phenomenal
growth of private education especially at the post-secondary level. This
rapid expansion was partly due to the growing demand for higher educa-
tion, the limited number of places in public institutions, and the greatly
increased cost of overseas education. At present, there are around 277
private colleges in the country and they offer a wide range of professional,
technical and managerial programs. There are 41,957 students studying at
private higher learning institutes as compared to 87,331 students in the
public universities (“277 private colleges,” 1995).
The Malaysian government is keen that the private sector plays an
active part in supplementing the provision of higher education, especially
in technical and vocational education, which can be very costly. However,
a quick survey of the private institutions shows that most of them are
offering courses in areas like accounting, law, business, management and
more recently, basic computer studies, because these courses are less cap-
ital intensive (Lee, 1994). The government also wants Malaysia to become
the “regional centre of education” in the ASEAN region but, to achieve
this aim, the 1961 Education Act has to be amended so that English can be
used as a medium of instruction at tertiary level and foreign universities
are allowed to set up branch campuses in the country.8 At present private
colleges are not allowed to confer degrees. To overcome this obstacle,
they have come up with a very innovative and cost-effective approach of
providing higher education to students. They offer twinning programs
with overseas institutions in the United States, United Kingdom, Austral-
ia, Canada, New Zealand and other countries. The mechanism of twinning
allows the partial completion of a foreign program locally by an initiation
8. Although the 1961 Education Act has been under review for the past few years, so far
it has not been amended. But the Minister of Education announced that the amendment
of the Education Act will be tabled in October 1995.
 EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA 95

local twinning partner. In other words, under the twinning programs, stu-
dents can study part of the degree program in a local private institution and
then proceed to the final segments of the program at the foreign originat-
ing degree granting institution. Typical twinning programs are normally
“2+1” or “2+2” year arrangements. Upon completion, a degree is con-
ferred by the source foreign university. This kind of arrangement is highly
cost-effective and is very popular among students who fail to gain admis-
sion to any of the local universities.
Besides the privatisation of education, the Malaysian government is
working towards the corporatisation of its public universities. As from 1st
January 1996, the University of Malaya, the oldest university in the coun-
try, will be corporatised; and the other universities will follow suit in due
course. The corporatisation process involves a university being incorpo-
rated as a company limited guarantee, with a licence from the Education
Ministry. It will be able to form subsidiary companies to administer vari-
ous functions which include administrative operations, services and the
management of endowments. Once corporatised, the university would no
longer receive direct financial aid from the government to pay for its
operations and would have to generate revenue internally (“Prospective
Hms,” 1995). It is hoped that this move would help to cut cost and reduce
wastage in the operation of the university and at the same time to arrest the
brain drain among academics by offering them better pay. The alarming
concern for the public is the fear that student tuition fees may increase as
much as seven-fold, thus making university education beyond the reach of
many working-class children. However, the exact modes of corporatisa-
tion have yet to be seen and it will be a while yet before the consequences
of corporatisation will emerge.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The above discussion has shown that what has been a firmly state-control-
led education system has become liberalised to some extent; what used to be
an elitist secondary education has become universalised; what used to be a
highly centralised administrative system has been decentralised; and what
used to be a single “producer” of education, that is, the state, has changed to
“multiple producers” of education through privatisation. Most of the educa-
tional reforms and policies that have been analysed in this article are aimed
at school improvement and effectiveness. To what extent these reforms have
been successful at school level is hard to say because of the problem of
school performance indicators, and the problem of system-wide change.
96 MOLLY N.N. LEE

One of the greatest challenges in school effectiveness research is the

definition of school performance indicators. Much of the public discourse
on school effectiveness in Malaysia has focused solely on public examina-
tion results despite the fact that the national philosophy of education stress-
es the importance of the development of an all-around individual with
respect to intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical development. The
emphasis on public examination results does not only happen in Malaysia
but is quite common in other East Asian countries because of the close link
between educational and occupational success (Cowen, 1993). However,
recent literature on school effectiveness research has broadened the school
performance indicators from academic effectiveness to include behaviour-
al effectiveness. As pointed out by Reynolds and Cuttance (1992), the
classic model of the effective school is an “ordered school climate, asser-
tive headteacher leadership, concentration on basic skill acquisition, colle-
gial/consensual mentality and concern with conventional academic out-
comes” (p. 177). This classic model has been criticised for concentrating
on the first dimension of schooling, that is, the formal organisational struc-
ture; it has not given enough attention to the second dimension, which is
the cultural and informal aspects such as values, attitudes, and percep-
tions; nor the third dimension which includes the complicated web of
personal relationships within schools.
The over-emphasis on public examination results have resulted in cer-
tain teaching-learning strategies such as rote-learning and spoon-feeding,
strategies that may not be suitable for a fast industrialising society like
Malaysia. As observed by Chubb and Moe (1990):

A dynamic economy which is well-suited to modern conditions, re-

quires workers which are not only technically knowledgeable and well-
trained but also possess the capacity for creative, independent thought
and action, for technology and the requirements of productivity are
constantly changing and cannot be learned once and for all.

To meet Vision 2020, Malaysia needs active learners who have acquired
the skills of problem-solving, independent thinking, and autonomous learn-
ing as well as the abilities to work co-operatively. Schools need to empha-
sise different kinds of teaching and learning strategies such as co-opera-
tive learning, group work and other learner-directed modes of operation.
School performance indicators should be broadened to include a whole
host of social outcomes such as attendance, behaviour, self-image and a
range of attitudes to school.
 EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA 97

The focus of this article is on system-wide change that has been initiat-
ed outside the school itself. What must not be overlooked is the initiative
of individual schools and the local authorities. Many of the educational
reforms that have occurred in Malaysia are from top to bottom with very
little input from the schools themselves. Research has shown that initia-
tives taken at the school level itself or stimulated by local education au-
thority may be more effective and long-lasting (Mortimore, 1992). There-
fore, the Malaysian government should not only initiate system-wide re-
forms but also encourage initiatives from individual schools and provide
support through local education authorities. In the continual search for
greater school effectiveness, the impetus for change should stem from a
number of different sources.

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