Chinese are the second largest ethnic group in Malaysia. Hailing from coastal areas of Guang­dong and Fu­jian, their ancestors sailed across the South China Sea to take advantage of the region’s abundant resources, and they put down roots.

To help Chinese Malaysians acquire skills, the Overseas Youth Vocational Training School program, sponsored by the Overseas Community Affairs Council, holds classes at schools around Taiwan on subjects such as cosmetology, hair styling, hospitality management, and agriculture.

Centuries of tradition

Very early on, Chinese in Malaysia created simple schools attached to ancestral temples, and from these beginnings Chinese education grew and flourished for many years. Later, oppressive British colonial rule would engender a sense of crisis in the community, spurring an increase in the number of private Chinese schools to more than 1400 by the start of World War II. In 1957 Malaysia gained independence from Britain thanks in no small part to the efforts of its ethnic Chinese. But the Razak ­Report of 1956, although recognizing the legality of schools offering instruction in any of three languages (Malaysian, Chinese or Tamil), established Malaysian (Standard Malay) as the national language and the language of instruction in state schools. Consequently, Chinese Malaysians began a long campaign for the right to a Chinese-language education.   

After more than half a century of protests, debate and evolving policy, there are now more than 1298 elementary schools with instruction in Chinese that receive government assistance.

Students who attend Chinese elementary schools then select from three options for secondary education: national secondary schools, “national type” secondary schools and independent schools. Both the national secondary schools, which feature instruction in Malaysian, and the “national type” secondary schools, which instruct with a combination of Malaysian and Chinese, are five-year institutions. Only about 10% of students from Chinese elementary schools enter independent secondary schools. These private schools, which do not receive government assistance, are six-year institutions with Chinese-language instruction, much like the six years of secondary education in Taiwan. Consequently, many students go to college or university in Taiwan after graduating from them.

Peng Choong Leng, president of the Federation of Alumni Associations of Taiwan Universities, Malaysia, explains that his group serves as an important platform for facilitating educational exchange between Taiwan and Malaysia.

Taiwan-bound for college

Apart from the compatibility of the education systems, there are historical reasons that explain why so many Malaysian students who attend independent Chinese-­language secondary schools choose to go to college in Taiwan, says James ­Chang, head of the Tai­pei Economic and Cultural Office in Malaysia. Early on, graduates of independent Chinese secondary schools faced ethnic quotas when applying to college. When unable to attend local colleges and universities, they looked abroad. In the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, the United States hoped to encourage warm relations between ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and “Free China” (the ROC on Taiwan) by assisting Southeast-Asian Chinese to study in Taiwan. Taiwan possessed high-quality colleges and universities charging lower tuition than schools in the United States and Europe, so it attracted quite a few ethnic Chinese from Malaysia. Once the American grants ended, Taiwan launched its own “Overseas Chinese Education Policy.” Consequently, Chinese-Malaysian students have continued to come to Taiwan for over half a century. More than 70,000 Malaysians have attended college or university in Taiwan.

But back then, once the Malaysian students had finished their studies in Taiwan, their degrees weren’t recognized by the Malaysian government when they returned, so they often ended up as teachers in the independent school system. On the one hand, these Taiwan-educated teachers bolstered the professionalism of the education system, and on the other hand they shared their experiences of studying in Taiwan with their students, which led more of their students to make the same choice.

Malaysians who have studied in Taiwan have witnessed first hand Taiwan’s social development. Peng ­Choong Leng studied in Taiwan from 1986 to 1990, in those heady days when Taiwan repealed martial law and lifted prohibitions as social movements blossomed. More than 20 years later Anson Soh, now Malaysia sales director for Tag­too, witnessed the Sunflower Movement of 2014, a political movement of the new era. Whatever their generation, when these alumni of Taiwan’s colleges make plans to travel to Taiwan, they speak of “returning to Taiwan” not “going to Taiwan.” Taiwan has become a second home for many of them.

The message boards at Tunku Abdul Rahman University bear witness to Malaysia’s tremendous cultural diversity.

Platform for educational exchange

Upon returning to Malaysia, these students have become a powerful force. In 1974, they formed the ­Federation of Alumni Associations of Taiwan Universities, Malaysia (FAATUM). Apart from its social functions, the federation has actively lobbied the Malaysian government to recognize Taiwan degrees. It worked toward that goal for two decades before 1996, when the Malaysian government finally recognized eight medical, seven dental and three pharmacy programs in Taiwan. In 2012 Taiwan and Malaysia mutually agreed to recognize each other’s post-secondary degrees. Peng says, “Now those of us who have studied in Taiwan have another goal: We hope the government will allow holders of these degrees to enter public service.”

Located in Petaling Jaya, a satellite city of Kuala Lumpur, the federation has for more than 40 years been a launching pad for countless Chinese Malaysians to realize their dreams of studying in Taiwan. Serving as a Taiwan educational platform in Malaysia, its main mission is education counseling. Every year it holds regularly scheduled higher education fairs, traveling to various locations in Malaysia with the assistance of its 40 member associations (14 district associations and 26 school associations) to recruit students interested in studying in Taiwan.

In June of 2016 the federation and related institutions held a recruitment expo and launched a program to cultivate teaching resources for independent Chinese schools in association with Taiwan colleges and universities, as well as a program supporting innovative research to be carried out by colleges and universities in cooperation with industry. The goal is to foster new types and models of cooperation.

Actively moving in an international direction, UTAR hosts large numbers of foreign exchange students every year.

University exchanges

In addition to maintaining the traditions of Chinese education, scholars in Malaysia are working to foster their own “Chinese discourse,” and these efforts have led to growing exchanges between Taiwan and Malaysia.

Tunku Abdul Rahman University (UTAR) has been at the forefront of Chinese-language education in Malaysia since it opened in 2002. At first it had only eight departments, with 411 students.

Today it has 110 departments with more than 26,000 students. It has Malaysia’s largest Chinese department, with more than 400 undergraduates and graduates combined, and it has established an Institute of Chinese Studies. As Malaysia’s leading Chinese university, more than 90% of its students are ethnic Chinese. “It is our mission to pass down Chinese cultural knowledge—work that all the more important now that Chinese is an international language,” says Dato’ ­Chuah Hean Teik, the university’s president. “What’s more, we hope to record the history of Chinese in Southeast Asia, including the historical background and reasons why they came, as well as the contributions they have made locally.” 

The New Village Community Project is especially noteworthy. It refers to the “new villages” for Chinese Malaysians that were established in the 1950s. To prevent ethnic Chinese from establishing ties to communist guerrillas, the British colonial administration declared a state of emergency and resettled massive numbers of them into new villages, restricting their freedom of movement for more than a decade.

To gather information about this period, the uni­ver­sity’s New Village Community Project was launched in 2009, issuing requests to conduct fieldwork in these villages. The work attracted interest from academic institutions in nearby nations such as Singapore, Japan and Korea, who sent researchers to participate. With its deep ties to Malaysia, Taiwan also made its mark. Participants came from National ­Tsing Hua University, National Taiwan University, and Feng Chia University. “We have also engaged in joint research on Hok­kien communities in Malaysia with National Que­moy University, National ­Cheng Kung University and Xia­men University, and we have conducted research with National ­Chiao Tung University into Hakka culture,” says Chuah.

Actively moving in an international direction, UTAR has formed sister-school relationships with more than 40 schools in Taiwan, in addition to promoting student exchanges and joint degree programs. 

Fifty years ago, Taiwan became a place where many Malaysians would go to pursue their educational dreams, and those educational journeys have never ceased. Malaysia is the Southeast-Asian nation where Taiwan has most successfully implemented its exchanges of people under the “New Southbound Policy.” But Taiwan‡Malaysia exchanges should not be measured by rising numbers alone, “and their importance should not be limited to discussions of the New Southbound Policy,” says Peng ­Choong Leng. “The fruits of Taiwan‡Malaysia educational exchange are demonstrations of the true power of the Republic of China’s foreign relations.” That assessment should serve as a footnote to this historical era.

Tunku Abdul Rahman University has been at the forefront of Chinese-language education in Malaysia. (courtesy of UTAR)

Malaysians who have studied in Taiwan constitute important allies of the ROC, and educational exchanges between the two nations help to realize Taiwan’s “New Southbound Policy” by facilitating people-based exchange with the nations of Southeast Asia.