Chinese education and cultural resilience

Abstract

This chapter examines the roles played by the Chinese educationists in the development of Chinese education at three different levels, namely primary, secondary, and tertiary, focusing on language and education policies as well as other related issues, though policies and issues affecting these three levels of Chinese education differ markedly. Most of the Chinese primary schools in Malaysia were established in the early twentieth century following the large-scale immigration of the Chinese to Malaya. It was the Chinese educationists who played a key role in ensuring the existence of Chinese primary schools in the country, especially during the period of decolonisation in the early 1950s when the British promulgated several policies to replace the vernacular schools that were regarded as malintegrative and dysfunctional in contrast to their laissez-faire policy prior to the decolonisation period. Meanwhile, the government has not closed any Chinese primary schools without a valid reason since independence.