National identity and education system in Malaysia

Abstract

Malaysia is a multi-ethnic country comprising Malays, Chinese, Indians and many minority the newly independent nation-state was the establishment of a national education syste indigenous communities. When Malaysia gained her independence, one of the priorities of that can train the necessary human resources and to foster national unity. Following the independence in 1957, Malaysia embarks on a new educational system with national v with a level of competence, skills, and new knowledge that enable them to absorb new system has manage to unite her multi-racial citizens and furthermore equipped her society as its main objective. Now more than 50 years after independence, Malaysia's education development in the next centuries. Thus, it will discuss the educational policy of Malaysia technologies that will help put Malaysia as the forefront of global science and technology changes and to analyze how much of this changes are supportive for the national unity with focus on her education system and education objectives which has undergone various agenda which is now and forever the main concern of Malaysia. This paper will examine the role of education in Malaysia to see how far it has played its role in achieving the goal of national unity regarding integration and shared identity. This paper in particular, will analyze the country's education curriculum as the tool that geared the interactions between young people of different ethnic groups. Based on documents analysis of recent school syllabus and observations, this paper intends to describe schools' culture, traditions as well as rules and regulations that impact upon national identity formation and to access the extend to which the schooling system has been successful in fostering unity and integration.