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TASK 1
Malaysia is one of the harmony countries with a population of approximately 25 million
people. The population on this country comprises of diverse ethnic and racial mix of Malay,
Chinese and Indian people. Then every each community has its own identity, beliefs and
traditions. Thus it is important these values are understood and properly manage on aspect of
education as our educational system envisioned for Malaysian where all students regardless
of who their parents are or where they study will be equipped with the tools they need to
unlock their own future ( PPPM, 2013-2025). That means all the Malaysian students have
their right on getting proper educational system no matter what their race, ethnicity, socioeconomy status and also there geographical status.
The purpose of education in Malaysia is to enable Malaysian society to have a command of
the knowledge, skills, and values necessary in a world that is highly competitive and
globalised, arising from the impact of rapid development in science, technology, and
information. Preamble to the Education Act (1996). In order to fulfil this National
Aspiration, school takes bigger responsibility to make it possible as it act as an institution that
control and responsible on making changes of how supposed the education to be. But it was
not an easy job to make all the students receive the same amount of educational access in
term of technology and opportunity on doing experimental all the theory that they had learnt
on the classroom. This is because of the geographical issue where the urban students surely
will get more opportunity in term of ICT compared to students in rural area. Therefore in
Preliminary Blueprint, a mission had been made on the equity aspect where it will be 50%
reduction in achievement gaps in term of gender, socio-economic and urban rural by 2020
(PPPM 2013-2025). This mission is impossible to achieve without school support and effort
although the government will giving out large amount of money on this vision- it is more
than money issue.
Therefore the school need to strive in order to make all the national aspiration comes true.
On this paper SJK (C) Yick Nam Inanam will be a bench mark school for this research. This
school situated in a small town where there are several problems regarding the issue of
accessibility of ICT. In order to make sure the gap of academic achievement between the
rural and urban school is small the integration of technology with learning process is very
important. This school encounter problem with the ICT based teaching tools such as

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projector, smart board and LCD. Even many of the classes on this school are still using
blackboard and chalk but this school manage to reduce the gap by buying their own projector
and LCD. This small step taken by the school really help the students to get opportunity
learning with ICT although it stills not enough. The effort taken by the school really
remarkable as it really open opportunity for the students learning experience that comes from
small town area.
Since independence, our countrys core aspiration as a diverse nation has been to foster
unity. Unity is very important key element in the country with highly diverse nations. Greater
unity is associated with healthier populations, safer communities, and higher rates of
employment. In order to embrace the unity, it must being foster into the educational system.
As students spend over a quarter of their time in school from the ages of 7 to 17, schools are
in a key position to foster unity. School is the place where the interaction process occurs.
Through interacting with other students from a range of socio-economic, religious and ethnic
backgrounds, students will learn to understand, accept and embrace differences thus a shared
set of experiences and aspirations for Malaysias future can be built. It is through these shared
experiences and aspirations that a common national identity and unity is forged But in
Malaysia we must to remember that they are 3 types of school which are SK, SJK (C) and
SJK(T) while for religious school there are SMKA and Saint school. All these types of school
somehow divide the students according their races and their religion. This issue was already
being debated since the Barnes report, Fen Wu report and Razak report. Therefore as a school
itself they have no authority change the rules or system but still school as a powerful
organization can take several steps to foster unity among the multicultural students. For
SJK(C) Yick Nam, even though it was a Chinese school, but they dont set quota for each
races to enter to that school. All races are allowed to enter to that school as long they receive
early education at their pre-school. Thus from the observation during practicum 1 session, the
writer figure out that each classes on this school are encompass with multicultural students.
This brings positive sign to the Nationals goal which is to foster unity among the citizen.
Besides that, schools will be challenge to address the needs of students from many back
grounds. Therefore it was a challenging task for the educators. They must have a new mind
sets to accommodate the needs of a diverse population. On SJK(C) Yick Nm Inanam, there
are variety of ethnic groups, with their own distinctive lifestyles where some of their parents
come from Kota Kinabalu while the others come from the village. Razak Report in 1956
stated that, good education must reflect diversity, encourage understanding of various

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cultures and lifestyles(Abdul Razak,2005). Thus teacher should show a commitment to share
values and should enable pupils to respond positively to these. Therefore, teacher holds main
mission to change attitudes among the multi-ethnic pupils and to develop a pattern of
education that enables all pupils to give their best. In order to conduct this mission is not an
easy job, teacher should think several recommendations that might improve the educational
experience, such as making the instruction and assessment more culturally relevant and
responsive.
As a conclusion, education play important role in multicultural communities. Thus school is
a very important institution to nurture and shape the students. School acts as an agent to
enhance social integration among these various ethnic groups beyond mere physical
integration, and intends to eliminate social prejudice and discrimination. Multicultural
education in Malaysia will successful if the education system can provide an opportunity for
students of different ethnics groups to interact with each other. The education system should
bring all ethnic groups together will lead to cross-racial contact, thus this will lead to better
understanding of other races and promote greater social tolerance and interaction.

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REFERENCES
Abdul razak Baginda.(2005). Education in multicultural societies perspective on education in
Malaysia.England:Asean Academic Press.
Preliminary Report Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025
Banks, J.A. (2008).An introduction to multicultural education. United States of
America:Pearson Education.Inc.
Banks, J.A. (2002). Teaching strategies for ethnic studies (7th ed.). Boston: Allyn &Bacon.
Gay, G. (1994). Educational equality for students of color. In J.A. Banks, & C. A. McGee
Banks (Eds.), Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives (3rded., pp. 195-225).
Marshal,P.L. (2002). Cultural Diversity in Our School. Belmont: Thomson.