Minority Language Education in Malaysia: Four Ethnic Communities' Experiences

Abstract

Malaysia is a multilingual, multicultural society. The National Language Policy that established Bahasa Malaysia as the official national language includes a provision for the use of the nation's numerous other languages, including those of the indigenous minorities, provided that the parents request it and that there are at least fifteen students to make up a mother-tongue class. For many years, Tamil and Mandarin were the only language communities acting on that provision. However, in more recent years, several indigenous people groups, concerned about what they perceive as a decline in the use of their ethnic language among the younger generation, have begun language development and/or mother tongue education programmes. In this paper the author looks at four language minority groups – the Kadazandusun and the Iranun in Sabah, the Iban in Sarawak, and the Semai in peninsular Malaysia – and what they are doing to provide beginning education programmes for their children that use the children's own languages. Three of these mother-tongue programmes are presently in the formal education system. These educational trends aim not only at developing the students cognitively in their mother tongue and Malay thus achieving better results in school, but also at maintaining their unique cultural and linguistic heritage.