Napasorn Thepchanakul Orm 1101

During the world war period, many countries were colonized

by European empires, including the Belgian, Danish, Austro-
Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, German, Russian,
French, and British. However, Thailand is the one country that was
not colonized because Thailand maintained strong rulers and
exploited the tension between colonizing power making spheres of
influence across the other countries in Asia. Therefore, Malaysia and
Singapore were the counties affected by the colonization of
Southeast Asia. This essay is going to argue that Malaysia and
Singapore were less effective in economy, but more proficient in
education than Thailand when they were ruled by the British.
Begin with Malaysia; first of all, there is cross-cutting cleavage
between class and ethnicity. British recruited Chinese to Malaysia to
manage labor-intensive economies. Moreover, they were to
maximize their economic profits by keep political stability at
minimum price. These were not the good purpose because the
British just dealt with citizens in Malaysia, and also in Fijians. This is
called indirect rule. In addition, after that, these actions affected
people status. There were poor people in rich country, which Malay
is poor and Chinese is rich according to the statistic of Poverty
incidence by ethnicity. This continues from the colonial period.
Nevertheless, Malaysia had gotten a good education from this
colonization. It is irrefutable that English language is important and
it is also the second language for many countries. Although Malaysia
got their own language, some citizens still talk to each other in
English. According to English proficiency index of Education First,
which is the world leader in international education, in 2016,
Malaysia was ranked in two from nineteen countries in Asia, which
the status of proficiency is in a high level. Furthermore, Malaysia
had an opportunity to pursue tertiary education making Malaysia
has a good education system. In the other word, the British saw that
it should be educated in their individual native tongues needed for
English-educated Malayans. Therefore, the British government gave
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opportunities to Malays. The English-language schools were

published in the urban areas. Thus, this made Malaysia has a good
education until today.

Next is Singapore. The british governors used their power and

introduced an income tax to Singapore. There was re-introducing an

income tax in Singapore called Income Tax Ordinance. Furthermor

e, the principle of no tax without representative was ignored by the

British government. The form of statute adopted was originated on

Model Colonial Territories Income Tax Ordinance, the taxibility of inc

ome in 1922, planned for the British. However, most Singaporeans a

re speaking English because they got an influence from the British

many years ago. English served as the magisterial language of the B

ritish government, and when Singapore got an independence, the Si

ngapores government decided to continue keeping this language fo

r economic flourish. Now, English language also seems to be an offic

ial language for Singapore. In addition, education especially in Englis

h language in Singapore was the best in Asia until the present day.

According to Education First, the worlds largest ranking of countries

by English skills, in 2016, Singapore was marked on the 6th place ou

t of 72 countries and the first place in Asia. Also, the English proficie

ncy was very high.

The last is Thailand. Begin with economy. Thailand economy

growth rate became growing fast during 1987-1996 because Thailan

d has an independent. However, before 1950 Thai economy had bee

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n stagnated and the growth rate of income averaged just 0.2 % per

year. Moreover, the foreigner argued that why Thailand has no differ

ent in economy from the other colonized countries even Thai was no

t controlled by any. For example, Ingram and Feeny presented that

Thailand is independent, but economy was the same as colonial cou

ntries. Nonetheless, in 1987, Thai economy had a huge growth rate

reached to 10 % per year. The various parties surmised that Thailan

d might be the next industrail country in Asia and the factors makin

g Thai economy developed were exportation and investment from th

e foreign country. In addition, in 1993, World Bank called Thailand a

n East Asia Miracle. Nevertheless, the education in Thailand was not

good. According to the index in 2015, English language proficiency

in Thailand was very low and was dropping to 62nd out of 70
countries making Thailand stayed on the third worst country in Asia.
Education First said that Thailand has poor English skills although
the country spends more budget on education than any of 70
countries. EF also said that the government should set a modest
goal of a B1 level in English for all high school graduates.
In conclusion, we can see from this research that although
Malaysia and Singapore were quite not good in economy in the
period of WWII, their education was very strong which reach to the
second and the first place respectively compared with the other
countries in Asia. While the economy in Thailand was graceful and
the others called Thailand as the Thai miracle, Thai education was
the opposite, which fell to 15th place out of 19 countries in Asia.
Nowadays, however, economy in both Malaysia and Singapore are
better. According to ranking of Southeast Asia Nations by GDP in
2017 from International Monetary Fund, Malaysia and Singapore rise
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to 4th and 5th places out of 11 countries, respectively. Also,

Thailand is on the second place in Southeast Asia. If they
continuingly have a good economy, their education would be better
and improved.

Reference:

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