EDUCATION IN SARAWAK : AN HISTORICAL SURVEY, 1841-1963

Abstract

The following study deals with education in Sarawak during the period of Brooke rule (1841-1946) arid when the country became a Colony under the administration of the Colonial Office. It examines the attitudes towards the purpose of education and the motivations for favouring a certain type of education from three perspectives: the government, agencies providing education, and the recipients. The Brookes promoted vernacular education that emphasized the teaching of practical skills in order to improve the traditional livelihood of the people. Western education was greatly discouraged, particularly among the indigenous peoples, for the Brookes viewed such a type of education would contaminate the cultural integrity of the peoples. The Christian missionary societies established schools to teach Christian principles and virtues aimed at obtaining converts to their faith. In addition the mission schools in the outstations stressed practical subjects in their curriculum as a means of uplifting the living conditions of the indigenous peoples. The Boards of Management of Chinese vernacular schools intended that the great tradition and culture of the motherland be transmitted to the younger generation. The Chinese vernacular schools were wholly divorced from the local environment and kept the Chinese insulated from the mainstream of Sarawak society. But the Malays, Chinese, Dayaks and other indigenous peoples expected education to benefit them in socio-economic terms often translated as white-collar employment with the government. The urban population displayed enthusiasm for education but the attitudes among the rural peoples were generally indifferent to the need of schooling for their children. The Colonial Government as part of its wider plan in preparing the country for self-government utilized education as a means of fostering unity and integration among the multi-racial population and inculcating in them a sense of loyalty to Sarawak. Therefore its education policy and programme aimed at narrowing the wide disparity in educational level among the peoples and to gradually phase out the plural school system that perpetuated separatism and communalism in Sarawak society. Both these objectives in general received widespread support from the various communities. However, a small section of the Chinese community under Leftist influence staged a short-lived opposition to the Colonial Government's plan to create a national education system. Several problems and obstacles had to be overcome in the provision of education for the indigenous peoples.