A revisiting cultural transformation: education system in Malaya during the colonial era

Abstract

This article sketches briefly the course of cultural change based on the education system both in the appearance of Malay vernacular schools and missionary initiatives in Malaya during the British administration. The fact is that cultural change becomes always salient pertaining the relationships between colonial administration and the native peoples. Cultural change was a compulsory process embedded in and planned by the foreign powers on behalf of the native people. Therefore, particularly via implanting a new education system was explicitly aimed to restructure the social pattern of native societies. Thus, it was inevitable for the natives to be the subject of cultural change and as a concrete development they were exposed to the western-type education in various levels including secular attemps of colonial administration and missionary initiatives. The research object of this article is to draw attention into both Malay vernacular schools and also missionary attemps pertaining particularly educational plannings and implimentation in the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century by the British administration in Malaya. What is the more striking is that new type of education system was not only based on a replacement of religious education with secular one, but also was very functional to remould the native people’ worldview. For this purpose, the British tried to implement a new type of schooling known as Free School and then establisment of Malay vernacular schools in a modern sense of education either as personal initiatives at the beginning and later as a colonial educational policy. Missonary groups became a significant catalyst to inculcate western values to the native youths. The idea was, regarding the British authorities’ point of view, that missionary attemps would both lessen the burden of the administration and ensure demanded improvements of native youths to be recruited for the various posts during the process.