A typology of bilingual education in Malaysia

Abstract

Bilingual education has been practised in Malaysia at least since the sixteenth century. Since that era, bilingualism has carried with it prestige and opoportunities denied to the monolingual. During the British colonial era, rural children were kept monolingual while urban children were given the opportunity to become bilingual. The result was social stratification along ethnic and geographic lines. Since education is linked to upward social mobility, it has become the task of the education system to enable pupils to function in more than one language. This would give pupils equality of access to educational and job opportunities. The national curriculum for schools therefore encourages bilingualism and a number of forms of bilingual education have emerged. This article offers a typology of bilingual education in Malaysia. It identifies four main types of ‘transfer’ varieties of bilingual education, and the subtypes within them. These forms of bilingual education present an overview of choices in bilingual education that parents have when they send their child to a public school.

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