ABSTRACT
In any developing country, it is axiomatic for governments to regard education as the major contributor to the development of human and socio-economic capital for competition in the global economy. The Malaysian government pursues an ‘ethnicized neoliberalism’ in its attempts to maintain economic competitiveness on a global scale whilst perpetually balancing competing interests from the different political and cultural elites and collectives in the ethno-religious landscape. 1 The Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013–2025 (hereafter MEB), released in two stages –as a preliminary report in September 2012 and later in 2013 covering pre-school to post-secondary education, currently serves as the government’s comprehensive plan for a rapid and sustainable transformation of the Malaysian education system towards achieving global competitiveness. As per the National Education Philosophy (FPN: Falsafah Pendidikan Negara), 2 the MEB’s focus is on “developing the child holistically along intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and physical dimensions” through a strategy of emphasizing, in the words of then minister of education–cum–deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, 3 “teaching and learning quality, access to reliable and meaningful information, transparent accountabilities and appropriate learning environments and infrastructure” (Malaysia, 2012, p. E-4, Foreword). Yet, as a number of studies have pointed out, there have been perennial issues of disparity in relation to access and opportunities to different educational resources and opportunities within the Malaysian education system in broader contexts (Joseph, 2014; Lee, 2012).
