40 Tan Yao Sua and R. Santhiram
the pursuance of different educational pathways among the non-Malays.
This widening of ethnic divide will affect the tertiary level where a dual
system of higher education has been instituted in Malaysia since 1996.
It will also affect other levels of education following the phenomenal
growth of international schools in Malaysia in recent years. Given that
this widening of ethnic divide will also lead to the widening of linguistic
divide, its impact on the nation-building process should not be taken
lightly, more so when it involves a dominant global language.
This chapter begins with a discussion on the common language
policy adopted by Malaysia prior to the early 1990s. It then goes on to
examine policy inventions to improve the proficiency of English among
Malaysian students. Finally, it explains the reasons for the introduction of
the MBMMBI policy and explores the educational outcome of the diglossic
relationship between the Malay language and English in relation to the
nation-building process.
COMMON LANGUAGE POLICY
Up until the early 1990s, the main thrust of the Malaysian educational
language policy was to ensure that the Malay language serve as a common
denominator to unify the three main ethnic groups in the country. This
common language policy is mainly driven by Malay linguistic nationalism
as the underlying “ideological construct” (Tollefson and Tsui 2004, p. 284).
By linguistic nationalism is meant “the association of one language
variety with the membership in one national community” (Kramsch 1998,
p. 72). It was hoped that such an educational language policy would be
able to foster both “sentimental and instrumental attachments” (Kelman
1971) to the nation state to uphold the supremacy of Malay linguistic
nationalism.
This common language could be traced to the Razak Report
promulgated in 1956. Among other things, this report stipulated the
ultimate objective to elevate the Malay language as the main medium
of instruction in the national educational system (Federation of Malaya
1956). This common language policy was aimed at the post-primary levels.
At the primary level, the Razak Report allowed the vernacular primary
schools, namely Chinese and Tamil primary schools, to co-exist with the
Malay-medium and English-medium primary schools. But these schools
were subjected to a common content curriculum that was intended to