Written by Aaron Leong, he is a member of Akar Umbi Kita, a programme for emerging advocates against racial discrimination by Architects of Diversity, Imagined Malaysia, IDEAS and the European Union. This article is published in conjunction with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

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Barring Malaysians from attending international schools could create a more just society and ensure a better public education for all.

As classes ended on the first day at my posh new international school, I hurried to the student pick-up lane, entering my father’s creaky Proton Persona which was sandwiched between two spotless SUVs. He joked that I was lucky to have him as a personal driver free of charge; all the other kids probably had their own family-hired chauffeurs to pick them up. I was reminded of how privileged I was to be here on a scholarship, coming from a neighbourhood half an hours’ drive away.

International schools and the so-called ‘international education’ they offer are sanctified by Malaysians as the pinnacle of educational excellence within our country. They are also engines of societal inequality that grant access to top-notch educational resources exclusively to the children of Malaysian elites, destroying the notion of quality education as a public good that should be equally accessible to all regardless of socioeconomic position.

For the greater good of Malaysian society, international schools, in their current form, should be abolished.

In 2012, as part of efforts to “promote Malaysia as an educational hub” under the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), the government implemented a series of initiatives to attract prestigious foreign schools to establish satellite campuses in Malaysia, which included removing a longstanding quota on the number of local students in international schools. The international school system blossomed: according to ISC Research’s 2019 report, the number of international schools in the country soared by 75%, while student enrolment skyrocketed by 89%. This growth has been driven by demand from the Malaysian upper class, whose children now represent around 50% of students at international schools.

Here’s the percentage of international school students that should be Malaysian: 0%. Excluding special circumstances, Malaysians should be barred from enrolling their children in international schools.

As radical as it may sound, this policy has already been implemented in neighbouring Singapore, whose education system consistently tops international metrics for reading, math and science (with specific exceptions for students returning from living abroad). Singaporean citizens are forbidden from attending international schools.

I have witnessed firsthand how international schools reproduce inequality down each generation of students. In exchange for extracting high tuition fees, these schools groom the children of Malaysian elites to replace their parents in the social hierarchy, becoming elites in their own right once they grow up. This is achieved in a variety of ways, from the more personalized learning and counselling these children receive, to the greater variety of extracurricular opportunities they are exposed to, and the social and cultural capital that they accumulate through interactions with others within their aristocratic bubble. I was a beneficiary of these privileges myself. Meanwhile, publicly educated lower- and middle-class students are denied these privileges, limiting their upward mobility compared to their international school-educated counterparts.

But what about the benefits of international schools? In a New Straits Times article from 2017, Ahmad Sabirin Abd Ghani, the Education Ministry’s private education unit director, claims that the proliferation of international schools has “opened up choices and alternatives” for Malaysians, thus “democratising education” and “opening up access to education for all”.

A quick online search, however, reveals that even the cheapest, ‘lower-tier’ international schools charge a minimum of RM15,000 annually in tuition fees alone. At the school I attended, families paid RM90,000 annually per child – and my school wasn’t even regarded as part of the elite cluster of ‘top-tier’ international schools in the Kuala Lumpur area. Considering that the median Malaysian household earns RM70,476 annually, it is clear that international schools do indeed open up choices and access to education – for the Malaysian rich.

Many international schools charge high tuition fees by design – not because they can’t afford to reduce fees for students. The children of foreign diplomats and expatriates, who are given preferential admission, usually have their tuition fees covered by relocation packages offered by foreign governments or multinational corporations. To fill up the remaining slots, international schools bid up fees for local students, extracting as much money from the local economy as possible, while ensuring that only the most privileged of Malaysian society get to attend. To mask how they reinforce social inequalities, a few scholarships for low-income local students are offered, constructing the illusion that these schools can somehow be agents of social good.

If the children of Malaysian elites are barred from attending international schools, wouldn’t that force them into less well-funded public schools, making them worse off? In the short-term, yes. Such a policy would infringe upon the economic freedom of the Malaysian upper class by denying them access to the free market of education. However, by providing all Malaysians equal opportunity under the same education system, a net social good is created from the increase in social mobility and reduction of inequality. Furthermore, as Malaysian elites are forced to accept that the public education system is also now their education system, politicians and bureaucrats will have a personal incentive to improve public schooling for the sake of their children. If they do their job properly and the quality of public education rises for all Malaysians, their children may even be better off in the long-term.

International schools were established in Malaysia to educate the children of foreigners. Their role in our education system should be strictly limited to such. By actively championing a wealth-based ‘international’ alternative to public education for local students, the government transforms education, an equalizing force to resist inequality, into a malicious instrument that segregates Malaysian children into two classes: children whose parents can afford the quality education they deserve, and children who don’t receive the quality education they deserve.

Barring Malaysians from attending international schools will abolish international schools as we know them. It will also create a more just society, where a child’s dreams and aspirations are not shackled by the family they are born into.