A teacher from a Chinese vernacular school (SJKC) has sparked debate online after claiming that many Malay students enrolled in SJKCs are struggling academically due to a lack of parental involvement at home.
According to mStar, as more Malaysian parents, especially Malays, choose to send their children to SJKCs in hopes of helping them master Mandarin, the teacher argued that simply enrolling them in the school is not enough.
“No point sending them to SJKC if parents don’t help”
According to the teacher, many parents expect schools and teachers to handle everything without supporting their children’s learning outside the classroom.
There’s no point sending your child to an SJKC if you never check their schoolwork,” the teacher said.
The teacher claimed that most Malay students in the school performed poorly in subjects such as Chinese, Mathematics, Science, History, and Design and Technology (RBT), as many of these subjects involve Chinese language and writing.
The teacher added that students generally only performed better in Bahasa Melayu, English, and Islamic Education, as those subjects are not taught using Chinese characters.
Are parents okay seeing their children get poor results from Year One until Year Six?” the teacher questioned.
Some students may perform better in national schools
The teacher also questioned how students with weak academic results would later compete for entry into good secondary schools.
How are they going to enter good secondary schools if their results are poor?” the teacher asked.
The teacher further suggested that some students may actually perform better if they studied in national schools instead.
You know your children might actually get better results if they entered Sekolah Kebangsaan?” the teacher said.
At the same time, the teacher stressed that Mandarin proficiency can still be improved through external tuition classes instead of relying entirely on SJKCs.
You think Chinese language teachers are going to slow down and wait for your child? If you fall behind, you’ll be left behind. Taking Chinese tuition outside is already enough,” the teacher added.
