A Journey of Malaysian English (Part 2)

In Part 1, We talked about how English was introduced to Malaysia during the British colonialism. Though the Malay Sultanates did not like the idea of rural Malay kids enrolling in English schools because the schools were run by Christian missionaries, it was a different case altogether for the Malay aristocrats.

The Penang Free School is the first English School in Malaysia that was started in 1816 (It's still around!). As the population grows, more schools were built ranging from the Straits Settlement of Penang, Perak, Selangor, Malacca and Singapore. This has benefitted the urban people as they received education from these English schools.

In the rural areas, the government built Malay schools for the local Malays because of different religions. Even though bright Malay children were given scholarships to enter English schools after four years in Malay schools, this privilege did not increase the number of Malay children studying in English schools.

In the 1920s, The Malay College was established in Kuala Kangsar for the sons of Malay aristocrats. Children of commoners were not common sight in this education institution. It was an elite school that further accentuated the division between the elites and non-elites. Only the upper class children receive English medium education.

This elitist trend in education via English language for the Malays was later extended to the Malay Girls College in KL, 1948. The objective of setting up an English school for the Malay girls is to prepare them to be potential partners to the boys as they can match their English language proficiency level. Though these colleges may sound like a place for stucked-up higher class children, the schools proved themselves to have academic excellence.

Thus, in that time, it is not hard to differentiate between the upper and lower class among the Malays, whether they are from the city or from kampungs (villages). We just have to check their English proficiency.

Reference: Cultural Diversity Lecture Notes

Question to ponder:
How things have changed now. Do we still use one’s English proficiency level to judge one's social class?

*Part 3: English affects socioeconomic status.