Private Chinese Schools of Malaysia – review of Private Schools in Penang.

It must have been circa 2006 that I taught at Penang Chinese Girls’ Private High School. It was a culture shock for me. 

• the “chinese-mind” culture – arbitrary standards, rules and systems. Things seldom, if ever, go by merit. Things go by how popular you are and where you stand on the popular camp. Yes, rules can be bent if you are on the right side of the fence. 
• No contracts given to teachers and very, very low requirements to hire someone as a teacher. 
• Hiring process of teachers is as bad or worse than Kebangsaan schools. Do not expect qualified or mentally competent teachers. 
• the “communist culture” – everyone is treated as a number, not an individual human being. You only  matter if you produce results, not because you are a unique human being. 
• no innovation. In fact, innovation is not allowed. They are pretty bent on living in the past. 
• If any innovation or “new ideas” are considered they’re always a few steps behind. 
• Things are a lot more glossier on the outside. You get disciplinary action for saying anything bad about – just think North Korea.

Here are my Top 5 takeaways from my experience of teaching in a private Chinese school in Malaysia : 

• They expand more time and energy trying to control others or each other or point out mistakes rather than being productive. This covers all aspects from time consuming (time wasting) activities, classroom practices and “homework”. 
• They seldom walk their talk and are very incongruent between what they propagate and their beliefs. A harsh term would be “unconscious hypocrites”. For instance, they can preach “loving kindness” and “co-operation” but in reality they behave in ways that are cruel to a person’s developing psyche and model of the world and encourage cruel competition and selfishness. 
• The students are usually a lot smarter than all the teachers combined and thus the concerted need to dumb them down with ridiculous rules. (like getting prefects to buy bras on weekends so they can do a strip search the next week and find “patterned” bras.) – think Nazi concentration camp minus executions. 
• They pay attention almost exclusively to the “top students” and cream these students. Because of the small population of students the same students get roped in again and again for duties, responsibilities and competitions. 
• The UEC examination really deserves to be flushed down the drain. I walked away with a new respect for our Education Ministry and how they can tolerate this nonsense called the Chinese Private Education System. The standards are abysmal and they cannot possibly produce anything refined. They may, however, succeed in not destroying the most emotionally intelligent characters who are usually in the “back class”. 

There are two groups of parents who send their children to private Chinese education schools in Malaysia : 

1. The political extremist who would do ANYTHING to undermine the sovereignty of our government. These are usually educated, middle-class parents. 
2. The working class / borderline poor who want to keep their kids in school for as long as possible knowing their kids would kick their way out of a Malay kebangsaan school where their primary Chinese education would make them feel like aliens. 

Overall, I think private Chinese school systems do more harm than good and take away  more than they contribute to Malaysia going forward. However, I am also glad they are around because they demonstrate how liberal and open-minded our BN-led government has been in spite of all the flak the MOE and BN-led government is getting over their “failures” in designing a cohesive, progressive education system. If someone else (say, me) took over the entire Chinese private school vehicle Malaysia would definitely achieve Vision 2020. But that’s never going to happen because I have zero love for Communism. Bear in mind that the history and roots of the DuZhong were to separate themselves from the nation and “brainwash” their own community enough to bring a return to communism or Chinese supremacy. Education is indoctrination. And they never forgot their main objective of creating separation. All their PR about unity? Total bullshit. You have to be in there as an observer and being non-partisan to know the place is crawling with communists. 

But hey, if you have nothing against Communism and you’re fine with your child being treated like a number then I suppose their ideology won’t really affect you to the degree it irks me. 

5 Reasons Why Would Middle-Class / Educated Parents Send Their Children to A Private Chinese School.

1. They can’t afford international or real private schools. They think all private schools were made equal. They think if DuZhong schools admitted a few Thai, PRC and African students, it’s the equivalent of an international school. NOT.
2. Even if they could afford real private schools or send their children to Singapore or elsewhere they are concerned about their child’s discipline and moral character if they mingled with “rich, spoiled, kids” or were too far away from the parents. 
3. They bought the belief that UEC is superior to SPM. This must be one of the things that make me laugh hardest. It’s like saying infant formula is superior to breastfeeeding. Look, it’s true that not everyone can handle the lifestyle to breastfeed or have value systems that would encourage them to breasfteed. And I’m using this as an analogy because this post was written at the request of a breastfeeding mom. SPM is not for EVERYONE – especially those who can afford to do better than that and who have a lot more options in life i.e. who have different lifestyle options in life than going to a local U or get a government job. 

   But to compare UEC to SPM is like comparing infant formula to breastmilk. Sure, a lot more things go into UEC but none of them is actually better for an intelligent, young person’s mind. If anything, UEC makes you dumber because it’s more rote, more memorizing, more of the same drill that goes into communist-style learning. The Math and Science standards are higher but compared to what, SPM? Try comparing it apple to apple, say A-levels. Try Khan Academy and external exams instead of relying on UEC if you’re serious about getting graded on Math and Science. 

4. They think the discipline in these schools are better. *chokes*. I don’t believe in humiliating and degrading human beings to the level they submit. In fact, I don’t even believe it’s the duty of a school or any teacher to discipline my child. My child goes to school for an empowering experience not to have another adult tell her who she is and what values and opinions she’s allowed to have. Hey, but that’s me – I’m not a communist, see? As my firstborn turns 16 in January I am becoming more and more aware that external discipline is a cruelty and violence towards another human being. I am a result of my conditioning and I have been guilty of trying to “discipline” my daughter and I regret every moment I was being that way. I was running on autopilot. 

   While I was teaching in that school I showed my students a movie, “The Emperor’s Club”. There was a scene where a Senator went against the school saying it’s not the school’s job to discipline his son. The moral of the story was fast forward many years later this son of a Senator becomes a Senator himself but had questionable morals and that’s what happens when you don’t let school teachers instill moral character. 

   I lean more towards Roald Dahl’s sentiments as expressed in BOY. I do not believe, that as a teacher, (and I still am, as a Life Coach and Business Coach) I have any right to judge anyone’s character when they are under my teaching. My job is to illuminate their minds. What they choose to do with their knowledge is up to them. Many teachers have taught talented students that have become deviants or antagonists. I believe in free-will and choice. And I believe that as teachers we cannot and must not discriminate when it comes to knowledge – even when our students use that knowledge against us or to defeat us. 

   Teachers are servants of our students. We serve. We are not their masters or their superiors or an authority, judge and jury over them. I serve and I get paid. I’m a social-preneur. 

5. They’ve weighed the cons of a private Chinese school and think that additional mastery of the Chinese language by being immersed in that environment is more advantageous than mastery in Bahasa Malaysia or English. This is especially true when one of the parents is Taiwanese or PRC or if Chinese is their mother tongue and they have no intentions of their child spending their entire lives making a living in Malaysia alone. 

Roundup :

Here are the factors we usually take into consideration. Sorry that I’m not taking the time to make this into a table of comparison. I’m rating them from my own personal experience only of interacting with other teachers and feedback from students while I was still teaching. The ratings are 1 (bad) to 10 (good). I am using my alma mater (CLS) as an arbitrary control averaging 5 on every factor. 

Quality of Teachers and school administration : 

Phor Tay : 1 out of 10. 

Chung Ling : 1.5 out of 10. 

Binhua : 3 out of 10. 

Han Chiang : 6 out of 10.

Quality of facilities and extra-curricular activities :

Phor Tay : 1 out of 10. 

Chung Ling : 1.5 out of 10. 

Binhua : 3 out of 10. 

Han Chiang : 8 out of 10.

Quality of classroom teaching, methods, materials, curriculum, overall academic standards : 

Phor Tay : 1 out of 10. 

Chung Ling : 1.5 out of 10. 

Binhua : 3 out of 10. 

Han Chiang : 7.5 out of 10.

 Quality of student mix and social experience : 

Phor Tay : 5 out of 10. 

Chung Ling : 5 out of 10. 

Binhua : 3 out of 10. 

Han Chiang : 8 out of 10.

Stress level and additional after-school workload : (reverse ranking : 10 = high stress, 1 = good, low stress) 

Phor Tay : 2 out of 10. 

Chung Ling : 5 out of 10. 

Binhua : 9 out of 10. 

Han Chiang : 6 out of 10.

Conclusion : 

It might seem as if I am more biased towards Han Chiang and I have been for many years. I have neither personal reasons for or against it. On merit alone this is probably the ONLY PRIVATE CHINESE SCHOOL NORTH OF MALAYSIA that functions like one with a purely scholastic agenda Thanks to their board of directors, Han Chiang as an entire entity (primary, private secondary, college) is a good choice for people with few alternatives in education. They run their school like a school. They pay their teachers better. They have a functioning ESL department and they generally hire competent teachers. I have managed to convince one of my former ESL students to not move to Singapore and instead enrol for Han Chiang’s O-level stream. 

Han Chiang holds true to a culture and environment for learning and offering academic support and opportunities to the Chinese community. I cannot say this is also the agenda of other private Chinese schools north of Malaysia……..maybe, perhaps, the whole of West and East Malaysia combined. Perhaps it is due to the history of a relatively higher population of Thai, Indonesian and students of other nationality that contributed to the adulteration of the communist agenda and instead on the focus of a genuine Mother Tongue Chinese education agenda. 

I welcome any questions you have about enrolling your children in a private Chinese high school so do leave your comments below. I’ll leave you with this last but very important part though : 

What I say here is true for me and is  based only on my experience and the way I see things. Depending on your own mix of values and your child’s mix of expectations and personality things might turn out differently for you (and your child). I’ve met foreign parents who preferred Binhua and Chung Ling because of a lower foreign-student population. I’ve met parents who avoid Han Chiang because of the high foreign student mix. They consider this as a factor making the Chinese-mother tongue environment “inferior” because they stream students according to their Chinese-language ability.  

Ask yourself why a private Chinese school rather than a kebangsaan school. Being weak in our national language is NOT a good or valid reason at all. Unless you get into the O-level stream, a UEC is pretty useless, or is as good as never having gone to school at all. Sure they tell you that in Taiwan it is recognized. But let’s see if one is treated as an equal on a Taiwan campus or as a Chinese-speaking pariah. The only valid reason I can think of for going to a private Chinese school like Han Chiang is the same reasons affluent Thai and Indonesian parents send their children here : to be immersed in the environment and pick up the language and darn if the results are bad. 

If you’re a homeschooling “wannabe” seriously question your motives about compromising between a kebangsaan school and then “settling” for a private Chinese school. On any given day as a bonafide unschooling parent I’d say, go to a kebangsaan school. A kebangsaan school in Penang has a better chance of providing a healthier overall academic experience than a private Chinese school no matter how bad it is. If it’s bullying and such, change kebangsaan schools. If you’re going to suffer schooling anyway might as well suffer in one that has some form of legitimacy. I find the character of kebangsaan secondary school students more balanced compared to DuZhong students. 

I totally get what the problems are with our kebangsaan school system. I wrote this entire blog over a course of years focusing on little else than the problems we have with our school systems – here in Malaysia and elsewhere. If anyone knows so well what’s wrong with school systems, I’m one of them. But now we’re talking “if homeschooling is not an option for me, what are my options?”

Homeschooling or private schooling doesn’t offer “better options” for the future until you become the kind of person that can lead that change from home. Once you are it doesn’t really matter what school your child is in. 

I had wanted to send FirstBorn to Han Chiang for the sake of immersion. First Born needs to sleep – a lot. And we would’ve gone if she were allowed to fall asleep at her desk – which you aren’t in Han Chiang. And the hours are too long for First Born to survive it. Han Chiang didn’t match our internal climate. And as people who live by Design we can’t screw ourselves over just to get on the assembly line. Neither do we want to fight a battle that isn’t necessary with any systems out there.

FirstBorn intends to take the SPM as a private candidate. I leave it up to her because one of the things I teach is being self-directed and self-driven. I tell her : “Have clarity on what you want, why you want it, and do what it takes to own the results in your life. If it’s important enough to you you’ll do it. If it’s not, then at least you’ll know you won’t be spending your energy on something you don’t really want.” She’s mature enough to handle that though many parents would disagree because according to them, “At that age I didn’t know what I wanted and I’m glad my parents pushed me.” – But here’s the thing : different strokes for different folks. That’s the core tenet of homeschooling. 

Whatever decision you make just trust that it’s going to be right for you and when you discover it’s not – just do a retake. Life is just a dress rehearsal.