[tamil] Re: Racism in national schools
These are observations of a professional who sends her children to a
national primary school in KL. She is a former teacher and has been noting
the perception of Indian pupils in the school over a period of time. The
teachers in the school are predominantly Malays.
However, she clarified that not all the teachers resort to such tactics. She
grouped them into three categories.
Category one: Dedicated and professional teachers whose only concern is the
education and welfare of their pupils. They are unlikely to use such
negative methods. But they are too few in numbers.
Category two: Average teachers. They feel overworked and concentrate only on
the very few good students. The weak ones are neglected. But they rarely
resort to racial abuse.
Category three: They are blatant racists and religious bigots. They do a lot
of emotional damage to the children.
The Indian pupils' problems and perceptions:
The children are generally eager to go to school to learn but are put off by
the teachers' attitude.
The children feel discriminated and sidelined. They are generally not
selected for any special occasions even when they are good in certain
activities. The children say preference is always given to the others.
The teachers tend to always pick on Indian children.
The children made to feel inferior because they are constantly passed over,
even in activities like song singing or just reading in class.
The teachers give opportunities in sports and academic activities to Malays
and Chinese pupils. Indian children are overlooked even if they are good
because of their darker skin.
The teachers give some Indian children attention only because their parents
make their presence felt in the school. That is they frequently visit the
school and meet the teachers. Thus when teachers feel a certain parent can
create a scene the child is given a chance of being selected for activities.
Sometimes when parents take a stand, their children are bullied and
threatened by the teachers. The teachers ridicule the ethnic origins of
their parents, their religion, sometimes even in very vulgar terms.
When it comes to homework/schoolwork, the teachers pick children they favour
for extra mileage. The children's schoolwork is left unmarked. When parents
of Indian children raise the matter with the school, the teachers pick on
the pupils in other ways. In some instances, the children have been
threatened and physically abused. The headmaster generally closes an eye
unless it becomes a major issue.
The teachers continuous tell the Indian children that they are slow and
stupid. This goes on throughout the children's school life.
The teachers pick on the darkest child, constantly abusing him/her to the
extent that the pupil becomes defensive, rude and offensive. Thus, they
grow up feeling inferior and sidelined and slowly gang up. They feel the
need to act out aggression. (Which means, they may end up filling the ranks
of gangsters in adult life.)
Other problems in the school: No proper POL classes are conducted. The
teachers are either late, called away for meetings or the children are given
work to copy without knowing what they are doing. The children just copy for
fear of being scolded.
This particular parent says she would have sent her children to a Tamil
school if one was available near her neighbourhood. According to her, the
national type school is depriving her children of learning their roots,
their heritage. The national schools are soulless (for the Indians) and
contribute to a feeling of loss.
She says the poorer Indian children have to contend with a lot of issues at
a very young age. Schools should be a happy environment, conducive to learn
and play. That option is not always available for Indian children from poor
backgrounds in national schools.
Tamil schools give them a sense of solidity that strengthen them and helps
in their intellectual development. And it gives them a sense of identity and
culture. She believes she is depriving her children of their birth right to
a branch of knowledge that can only be acquired through a sound grounding in
her mother tongue.
She regrets that she was not given a fair chance of learning the language
because she was sent to a national school. Now she is struggling to learn
her mother tongue, but feels it is inadequate. She is unable to read and
understand religious text and the works of profound Tamil thinkers and
scholars. Because of this inadequacy, she feels she is teaching her children
only the Hindu rituals and not the spiritual and philosophical aspects of
her religion.
Note: This may not be the situation in all national schools. Teachers in
schools in middle class neighbourhoods may not resort to such actions for
obvious reasons. But racist practices exist in national schools and the
victims are mostly Indian pupils from low-income families. The following
news report is just another example.
The Star,
Friday, April 20, 2001
Some teachers racist, says Zakaria
By R.S.N. Murali
SEREMBAN: There are teachers in national-type schools in the state who are
racists, State Education, Information Youth and Sport committee chairman
Zakaria Nordin said.
He said these teachers even openly criticised other races in classes without
bothering about racial sensitivities.
These teachers, he added, had hampered the efforts to foster racial unity
and integration among students.
Zakaria said these teachers disseminated wrong facts about certain races in
the country to their students.
"We are aware such elements even exist at primary school level, if this goes
unchecked we would surely fail in our objective to encourage integration
among the various races,'' he said here yesterday.
Zakaria said these teachers were encouraging the segregation of the students
at schools and not integration.
Zakaria said Parents-Teachers Associations had been told to check on such
elements at their respective schools.
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