Malaysia’s Chinese Primary Schools: Saved Yet Threatened by Rising Inflows of Malay Students

INTRODUCTION

In November 2024, a TikTok video of a young Malay student went viral in Malaysia. His story was compelling: A Malay student who became the valedictorian in a vernacular Chinese school in Penang, the state with the highest percentage of ethnic Chinese in the country.

The video, which has more than 1.8 million views, 220,000 likes, and 2,742 comments at the time of writing, showed Ahmad Khidir Ahmad Nazri receiving five awards, including Top Student and Best in Year, from Sekolah Menengah Jenis Kebangsaan (SMJK) Heng Ee, which is among the best schools in Penang with the highest enrolment. The news story of a “non-Chinese student securing the top spot in the country’s hyper-competitive Chinese school syllabus” is still shocking to many, as seen in the TikTok video comments, notwithstanding the growing intake of Malay students in vernacular Chinese schools.

This article examines the phenomenon of the rising Malay pupil population in vernacular Chinese schools in Malaysia, focusing on primary schools where this is especially evident. First, the article will address the current state to situate the phenomenon by gathering fragmented data and describing them. It will then proceed to analyse the potential reasons behind the rising number of Malay pupils in these schools. Lastly, this analysis will conclude with a few implications of this phenomenon—for these schools, for the students, and for the Chinese community.

THE PHENOMENON: MORE MALAYS IN CHINESE PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Malaysia’s education system, particularly mediums of instruction and vernacular schools, has been largely shaped by its racial history, arguably initiated by British colonial policies of segregating schools by ethnicity: Malay, Chinese, and Tamil schools. Through multiple policy efforts, including the 1956 Razak Report, the 1969 Rahman Talib Report, and the 1961 Education Act enactment, the government sought national integration through the emphasis on Malay as the primary language of instruction, without sacrificing vernacular schools and culture.

Notwithstanding these policy changes, strong community support from the Chinese community meant that Malaysia today has the most complete Chinese education system in terms of availability at all levels, from kindergarten to university, outside Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Table 1 below broadly outlines the types of Chinese-medium education institutions that are available, and their respective features.

Table 1: Chinese-medium education institutions from kindergarten to university in Malaysia

Education Level	Type of institution	Recognised as national schools?	Funding status	Medium of instruction	Curriculum or examinations
Kindergarten	Tadika Cina (Private Chinese kindergartens)	No, but officially permitted	Private, no government funding	Mandarin (Malay and English subjects taught)	Private curriculum with national preschool guidelines
Primary	Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC)	Yes, national-type	Partial government funding	Mandarin (compulsory Malay and English subjects)	National curriculum and school-based assessments
Secondary	SMJK (Sekolah Menengah Jenis Kebangsaan)	Yes, national-type	Partial government funding	Malay (Mandarin taught as a subject)	National curriculum and SPM exams
	Chinese independent high schools	No	Private funding	Mandarin (Malay and English subjects)	Independent curriculum (United Examination Certificate, UEC)
University	Private Chinese-medium institutions	No	Private funding	Mandarin and English	Accredited by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA)

Unsurprisingly, these schools were seen not just as institutions for preserving the mother tongue but also the Chinese culture and way of life were attended mostly by ethnic Chinese. However, this has steadily changed in the last 15 years; and this is most evident in the intake demographics in the Chinese primary schools (SJKC).

Chart 1: Total number of SJKC students by Chinese and non-Chinese demographics, from 1989 to 2020 (available years only)

Chart 1 shows the total number of SJKC students from 1989 to 2020, with a breakdown of the Chinese and non-Chinese intake. Given the generally fragmented and private nature of such data, this chart has the achievement of being one of the most comprehensive collection of SJKC data by ethnic breakdown, even with the missing years, though it is important to note the trend has persisted to recent years.

As mentioned above, the non-Chinese population at SJKCs was negligible at 3-6 per cent between 1989 to 1995. However, as we approach the 2000s, the double-digit percentage of the non-Chinese population had risen sharply, reaching one-fifth of the total SJKC population in 2020. Granted, the total SJKC population had decreased from 1999 onwards, a trend which we shall address below, but the absolute number of non-Chinese has grown substantially. In the past decade (2010 to 2020), SJKC non-Chinese students, in absolute terms, rose by 39 per cent (or +28,568). As a percentage of the total student population, non-Chinese enrolment percentage rose from 12-20 per cent in the same period.

Of the non-Chinese population at SJKC, the majority has been the Malay population. For instance, 9.5 per cent of the 12 per cent non-Chinese SJKC students in 2010 were Malays, and by 2020, 15.3 per cent of the 20 per cent were Malays. Thus, it is sensible to conclude that the Malay population has been the primary contributor to the increased non-Chinese percentage in SJKC.

In smaller Chinese primary schools, the non-Chinese population was the majority. For instance, Chi Sin Chinese School had 62 out of 66 students who were Malay, and all 20 of the Primary One students were Malay.

Other schools with a similar phenomenon include SJKC Khai Chee (64 per cent Malay), SJKC Kuala Krau (66 per cent), SJKC Chio Chiao (80 per cent Malay), SJKC Panching (81 per cent Malay), and others. Kedah is a standout state where the total SJKC population has 28 per cent students who are non-Chinese, and 5 out of 7 SJKCs in Baling has a Malay majority. These schools typically have fewer than 100 students, and thus, for SJKCs with declining Chinese students, it is the non-Chinese intake that has ensured that the school population has not fallen even lower.

THE REASONS: ACADEMIC REPUTATION IS A PRIORITY

The reasons for the increasing percentage of Malay students in SJKC are at once due to the increasing keenness by Malay households to send their children to SJKC (numerator) and the declining Chinese student population in these schools (denominator).

The reasons for the increasing percentage of Malay students in SJKC are at once due to the increasing keenness by Malay households to send their children to SJKC (numerator) and the declining Chinese student population in these schools (denominator). It is important to note that these phenomena are separate and not causal or correlated.

There are currently no publicly available structured survey results on Malay parents who send their children to SJKC and on why they did so. Most anecdotal evidence points to five factors that are most important to parents in choosing a primary school for their children: academic reputation, discipline, facilities, language of instruction, and location.

To provide original quantitative evidence, I conducted a targeted in-app survey to assess the primary school preferences of Malay parents, i.e. between national or SJKC schools, to gauge which factor(s) had been most important for them in deciding to pick an SJKC.

The survey presented the respondents with multiple-choice, Likert-scale, ranking, and conjoint questions of different school profiles. The purpose has been to examine what would make Malay parents switch to a Chinese school, with the basic assumption that national schools would have been their default choice.

Parents ranked “academic reputation” as the most important factor when choosing a school for their children, whereas the least important factor was the language of instruction. Location and discipline factored more importantly than school facilities (Chart 2).

Chart 2: Percentage of contribution of each factor to the total score of school choice factor ranking

Around 69 per cent of respondents preferred SJKC for its high academic reputation, location, and disciplined environment. Notably, even if facilities were only basic in an SJKC, two-thirds of the respondents would still opt for SJKC, underscoring that academic quality is a paramount consideration. This preference likely indicates a declining perception of academic quality in national schools among Malay parents.

On the flipside, if a national school comparator had a better academic reputation, two-thirds of the Malay respondents would choose it over a Chinese school, even though the latter may have better discipline, facilities, and is closer to home. In summary, this survey data indicates that the perceived academic reputation is the driving factor behind a Malay parent’s choice of a Chinese school, and other commonly cited reasons like facilities, location, and discipline were good-to-haves, which were typically offered by a Chinese school.

However, it is important to note that the survey respondents were primarily middle-class Malay parents who had tertiary education and, thus, may not be representative of the Malay parent population as a whole. Notwithstanding, the respondents did represent parents who have the resources to choose, and it fulfilled the survey’s purpose of determining preferences between hypothetical options.

The other parallel phenomenon taking place that contributes to a higher Malay percentage in SJKC is a drop in the Chinese population in these schools. Even though it is claimed that more than 90 per cent of Chinese households send their children to SJKC, the absolute number has been declining. The overall decline in student population is also observed in national schools, whereas international schools’ enrolment has been increasing rapidly (using the period 2010 to 2020).

As seen in Chart 1 above, the total Chinese student population has been decreasing consistently since 1995, from 563,781 to 408,578 in 2020, representing a 28 per cent drop over 25 years. This corroborates with the state-level SJKC population data, which saw an average 15.9 per cent drop from 2010 to 2021, with Johor, Perak, and Selangor experiencing the largest absolute decline, and only Sabah and Labuan had an increase (Table 2).

Table 2: Student population in SJKC in 2010 and 2021

States	2010	2021	Reduction (absolutes)	Reduction (%)
Perak	60,073	41,290	-18,783	-31.3
Kedah	26,039	18,632	-7,407	-28.4
Terengganu	2,740	2,186	-554	-20.2
Pahang	21,916	17,136	-4,780	-21.8
Perlis	2,205	1,821	-384	-17.4
Negeri Sembilan	22,777	18,149	-4,628	-20.3
Kuala Lumpur	49,003	43,640	-5,363	-10.9
Penang	53,874	44,663	-9,211	-17.1
Melaka	19,482	15,875	-3,607	-18.5
Johor	110,454	90,473	-19,981	-18.1
Sarawak	70,374	60,412	-9,962	-14.2
Kelantan	6,321	5,383	-938	-14.8
Selangor	121,492	110,276	-11,216	-9.2
Sabah	35,202	35,827	625	+1.8
Labuan	1,240	1,414	174	+14.0
Total	603,192	507,177	-96,015	-15.9

While there is no exact comparator data to prove it, it is reasonable to surmise that this change among Chinese students is likely due to lower birth rates in the Chinese community, and increased enrolment by Chinese students in private international schools. per cent For the latter, the Ministry of Education has stated that the non-Bumiputera student (typically referring to Chinese and Indians) population in international schools has increased by 30.6 per cent between 2019 to 2024.

To conclude this section, the simultaneous upward interest of Malay families in SJKCs and the downward movement of Chinese population growth and their SJKC enrolment numbers have contributed to the steady percentage increase of Malays in SJKCs over recent decades.

THE IMPLICATIONS: ACCOMMODATE OR PERISH

For Malay parents who chose to send their children to SJKC, the journey had not been easy. TikTok influencers Mas Azlimand Syahirah Omar, whose following includes other Malay parents who went to SJKC, shared that Malay parents had to take additional steps in food preparation (to ensure their children eat halal food) and Islamic lessons, as they were not typically offered in SJKC. This corroborates with the in-app survey where Malay respondents were concerned with “food choices” and “lack of religious classes” in SJKC.

Above all, the mastery of Mandarin and the curriculum consistently proved most “challenging” for non-Chinese pupils, according to parents and teachers, especially among students with little Mandarin foundation before. A former SJKC teacher estimates that it takes at least three years for non-Chinese-speaking pupils to master spoken Mandarin, with some students struggling even after six years. Even if these students learned to read and converse in Chinese, their writing skills remained “mediocre”, which affected how they scored in exams that were entirely written.

In SJKCs, Chinese is not only the medium of instruction but also the language for all the subjects, except language subjects. Malay parents spoke about the need to prepare their children with additional tuition classes for Mandarin, sending them to Chinese-based kindergartens early, and honing mental and physical resilience in the children to go through tough times. While the cases of Ahmad Khidir and other high-performing non-Chinese pupils were not untrue, they were certainly not the norm.

On occasions where the Malay students struggle to cope, they would request for a transfer out, and this typically happens after a year, and if not, further into the fourth or fifth year. This option, however, is only considered as a last resort (“no other choice”) and only upon the voluntary decision of the parents rather than the independent request from the schools.

What that means is that most SJKCs, especially those reliant on non-Chinese students to prop up the student population, would resort to accommodative techniques. These techniques include classroom-level interventions like extra tutorial hours, interactive learning modes, study buddy programmes, and “star charts” to nurture students’ confidence; and school-level interventions like halal food options, prayer rooms, avoiding brewery logos, and bilingual communications, i.e. in Mandarin and English or Malay.

For instance, the Parents and Teachers Association meetings at SJKC Chio Chiao are conducted bilingually to accommodate non-Chinese-speaking parents. In schools with classes of majority non-Chinese pupils, like SJKC Kampung Baru Paroi, using a bilingual teaching format seems inevitable. Some schools have even started providing Islamic education classes for their Muslim pupils.

These accommodation techniques are not without controversies. To Chinese education purists, the core argument is that excessive accommodation to non-Chinese pupils threatens cultural integrity; this is highly likely. It would reduce SJKC to merely bodies that teach Mandarin when these institutions are transmitters of Chinese culture and way of life. These educationists see SJKC as a precious ecosystem built through decades of Chinese community support, and should therefore preserve its original Chinese characteristics, even when the Chinese student population is low and declining. Fundamentally, they see SJKC and its Chinese community as a bulwark of Chinese identity against external threats.

On the other hand, the realists argue that without such accommodation, many SJKCs face the gloomy reality of closure. Out of the 1,302 SJKC as of 2022, almost half (47 per cent) have less than 150 students, with 48 schools with less than 30 students and 19 schools with less than 10 students. The realists also argue that the purists have exaggerated the accommodation trajectory, and Malay parents and students understand the quid pro quo — SJKC to provide quality education and the Chinese language, and the Malay pupils to accept cultural programmes and rules like playing the gongs and lion dances. Even if accommodation were to grow, however, realists see it as a way to preserve SJKCs albeit that this is achieved through the growing non-Chinese student population.

Of course, there is a middle ground that is most likely to be realised in the medium-term, even if the enrolment trend continues: Adaptation to Malay students will happen but not in a wholesale manner, and efforts to maintain cultural integrity will always be attempted since Chinese features in SJKCs are still dominant.

Additionally, SJKCs remain a strong political platform through which to appeal to Chinese voters, even as the student population and enrolment decline.

This existential question confronts the Chinese community amid a declining population growth rate and rising pressure against the vernacular schools. The decades-long effort to abolish vernacular schools persist until today, on the argument that vernacular schools are barriers to national unity and identity. As recently as 2024, education groups brought this to the Federal Court to argue against the constitutionality of vernacular schools.

CONCLUSION

The significant demographic shift presents an ironic twist where diversity in SJKCs increasingly resembles conditions found in multicultural national schools. At the same time, Malay medium national-type schools have assumed a more monolithic profile … while the Chinese population continues to choose other schooling options.

The significant demographic shift presents an ironic twist where diversity in SJKCs increasingly resembles conditions found in multicultural national schools. At the same time, Malay medium national-type schools have assumed a more monolithic profile (Bumiputera students make up 95.1 per cent of the total student population), while the Chinese population continues to choose other schooling options. If this pattern persists, claims for abolishing vernacular schools may weaken, with the academic reputation of SJKC — deemed a top reason for Malay parents’ SJKC choice — serving as a shield against criticisms. However, this will bring us to a larger existential question for the Chinese community; and this concerns whether preserving vernacular schools at the expense of their core cultural mission represents a genuine victory or a hidden loss.

In any case, the momentum of the declining student population and the Chinese population growth rate is not in the Chinese community’s favour, and demanding more amid a downward momentum reduces bargaining power over time. The case of Ahmad Khidir is an exception rather than the rule. SJKC would need to accommodate for non-Chinese pupils if the latter’s numbers continue to rise as a percentage of the total population. Given that the increased keenness among non-Chinese pupils coincides with the declining student population at SJKC, it is becoming clear that accommodation by the schools is not made with an expansionist mindset, but one of necessity. There is full awareness that if this is not done, there might not even be SJKCs in the future. That reality is at once humbling and terrifying for them.

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This is an adapted version of ISEAS Perspective 2025/34 published on 13 May 2025. The paper and its references can be accessed at this link.