National Integration In Schools

PROGRAMS OR ACTIVITIES THAT MAY BE TAKEN TO HANDLE THE CHALLENGES OF MULTICULTURALISM IN SCHOOLS.

As Malaysia is known as multi-racial country, living in the environment with people from different religions, races and cultures, the society really need a high level of understanding and respectfulness to each other. The 13th May 1969 tragedy was really being a lesson for us, Malaysian about the importance of the national integration and unity and how dangerous prejudices and racial sentiments were as it is the reason why the riot happened a long time ago. There are several alternative to promote unity among multicultural students in schools which are the content of the pupils’ textbook, RIMUP programs, providing as much as possible chances for

Since it is applied to all type of schools, personally, I think this program is good where pupils may get to know each other, socializing together, and accepting and understanding each other. This is also agreed by Najeemah Mod Yusof (n.d.) in saying that, one of the ways to form national unity and national identity in a multi-ethnic society is by providing as much as possible chances for students of different ethnic groups to interact with each other. In Malaysia Education Blueprint Annual Reprt (2013) also stated that one of the aim of RIMUP program is to encourage more interaction among students from different school types, ethnicities, and religious beliefs. As what I can see through the RIMUP programs in SK Seri Bayu, the program is consistently organized by the school administrations and teachers every time there are any celebrations like National Independence Day, Children’s Day, Hari Raya and others. The pupils of SK Seri Bayu, SJK(C) Ping Ming and SJK(T) Mukim Pundut are grouped together while playing games that are conducted by the teachers and also sitting together in the hall during the events where pupils befriend with each other without them

As Khelghat-Doost, H., et. al, 2011 says, the most important factor which differentiates vision school from ordinary schools is the notion of enabling students from different ethnic backgrounds to interact with each other during break time and other joint co-curriculum activities, the five days of my SBE in that school, I spend much of my time sitting in the canteen and field to observe on pupils behaviour and how this sharing the same areas will lead to national unity. As I was observing, at first from my opinion it didn’t work because pupils just eat with their friends from the same school but once, there was a bug if I am not mistaken, so the SK Seri Bayu pupils tried to kill it but it escaped. So, they asked for help from the SJK (T) Mukim Pundut pupils to kill the bug as it ran to their place and they continued interacting and laughing together. This shows even though, both of students of SK Seri Bayu and SJK(T) Mukim Pundut only eat with their group of friends but they ate under the same roof and unconsciously, without them knowing there are interacting with each other. Same goes during their play time at the field where pupils interacting while they were playing football. All of these little interactions even seem simple but it is one of steps towards