There have been many cases of cultural and ethnic insensitivity and abuse in Malaysian schools. While such events have been reported in the daily newspapers, I have not read much on how teachers have been taken to task or made accountable for their ethnic insensitivity. Ornamental reason A critic of Tamil education recently suggested that Tamil language be taught in a casual and not in an institutionalised way. There is great danger in this. This is a sure recipe for loss of mother tongue in the long run.
Language teaching needs to be institutionalised, transmitted and used inter-generationally.
There must be social avenues to keep it a living language not just left to the interest on this or that individual or this or that parent. To preserve a culture for ornamental reasons is to insult it. Even in areas of stated intentions to introduce, at the tertiary level, courses on civilisations, civilisations other that the Islamic one has not been adequately addressed. Thus, the national educational system is an utter failure in terms of education's cultural agenda. Our national educational system is hardly the place to look for an active and informed support for ethnic cultural diversity in this country.