Int Rev Educ (2012) 58:581–583 DOI 10.1007/s11159-012-9299-z BOOK REVIEW

Education in South-East Asia By Colin Brock and Lorraine Pe Symaco (eds). Oxford: Symposium Books, 2011, 348 pp. Oxford Studies in Comparative Education series. ISBN 978-1-873927-56-4 (pbk) Birgit Brock-Utne

Published online: 29 May 2012  Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Education in South-East Asia, edited by Colin Brock and Lorraine Pe Symaco, contains 17 chapters divided into 2 parts. The first part deals with specific countries in South-East Asia and contains 11 chapters, discussing the education system in the following 11 countries: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), Malaysia, Myanamar, Philippines, Singapore, Timor-Leste, Thailand and Vietnam. All of these countries, with the exception of Timor-Leste, are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which has its headquarters in Jakarta. The second part contains 5 chapters which address themes that cut across all of the 11 countries. These themes deal with gender and education, higher education, education and language policies, quality assurance and education as investment in sustainable development. The first part of the book is preceded by a five-page introduction by the two editors. The volume, published as part of the Oxford Studies in Comparative Education series, is the first book in the series devoted to the South-East Asian region – an area, as the editors note, on which academic literature is in general rather thin. The editors explain this by pointing to the fact that conventional images of nations tend to place the countries in the South-East Asian region either in the ‘‘developed and industrialised’’ category or in the ‘‘underdeveloped and rural’’ category. With the exception of Singapore and Brunei Darussalam, none of the countries in the region and described in this volume are in the High Income Countries Category, while at most three – Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar are regarded as Low Income Countries. Countries in the region are mostly lower Middle Income Countries with the exception of Malaysia being a High Middle Income Country according to the 2010 World Bank World Development Index. Culturally the region is diverse, being composed of a wide range of indigenous cultures and indigenous languages on top of which are overlays of colonial legacy. These vary from British in Brunei B. Brock-Utne (&) Institute for Educational Research, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected]

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Darussalam, Myanamar, Malaysia and Singapore, to Dutch in Indonesia, Portuguese in Timor-Leste, French in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam, and Spanish and American English in the Philippines. Thailand is one of the very few developing countries that was not colonised by the West. When it comes to religion, the region is also diverse. Indonesia is the most populous Islamic nation in the world while Islam is also very influential in Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam as it is the religion of the politically dominant culture in these two countries. Christianity is dominant in Timor-Leste and also in the Philippines, except for some parts of the region of Mindaao which makes for internal tensions affecting education. Vietnam has a strong Confucian heritage which it shares with nations like South Korea, China and Japan. The Confucian heritage, as Pham Lan Huong and Gerald W. Fry explain in their chapter on Vietnam, gives high status and recognition to education and teachers with a reverence for learning. Most of the chapters give a short historical overview of the education system in the country during different periods, normally pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial, and then discuss issues of educational quality, prioritisation of basic education over other levels of education, privatisation and inequality in education and the mismatch of graduate skills with the labour market. Most chapters are written or co-written by authors from the country in question which strengthens the validity of the information provided. Most chapters discuss issues like repetition and dropout rates, but it is disappointing that apart from Richard Noonan in the Lao chapter other chapters hardly mention the language issue. Very often the use of a language of instruction (LOI) children do not master is the main reason for the dropouts, low exam results and repetitions. It is not enough to let Keith Watson deal with the language issue in a separate chapter. The issue should certainly not be ignored in any chapter on education in developing countries. Many of the South-East Asian countries discussed in the book are making serious policy changes when it comes to LOI and practice is also impressive in some countries. Particularly so in the Philippines, where the use of English is being ‘‘downgraded’’ and previously non-dominant languages are being empowered. They (the Department of Education is heavily involved, so this is no NGO effort by any means) are currently using some 25 ? languages as LOI and the goal is to use all 170?. Nothing of this is mentioned in the book, but this information can be found in a book edited by Kosonen and Young (2009). I personally got most out of reading the informative chapter by Keith Watson on education and language policies in South-East Asian countries. He looks at how many of the countries in the region have become multi-ethnic and plurilinguistic over a long period of time. He argues that while several countries have begun to recognise the linguistic rights of their ethnic minorities, the realities of creating a national identity, economic necessity and political power will always mean that the dominant group, and those groups who have access to either a national or international language, will continue to maintain their privileges at the expense of the smaller ethnic groups. Watson holds that in the long term this could have catastrophic results for those minorities.

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When it comes to the situation in Malaysia, Watson is quite up to date when he writes about the decision to reverse the English language policy in 2012 so that science and mathematics are again taught in Bahasa Malaysia. He gives his own value judgment on this decision, however, when he writes: ‘‘[…] it will do little to help Malaysia achieve its goal of becoming an advanced nation’’ (p. 298). This is a surprising comment but heard quite frequently by people who have English as their first language. There is no reason to believe that Malaysia cannot become an advanced nation using a national and dominant language which many more students command better than they do command English. English can still be taught as a foreign language. Most advanced nations in Europe use their national languages to teach science and maths. An in-depth study from Sri Lanka shows the great advance of students, especially in maths and science, when the LOI was switched to Sinhala and Tamili instead of English. A recent attempt to reintroduce English in maths and science in some secondary school classes in Sri Lanka has failed, according to Wedikkarage (2009). It is a bit sad that apart from the Malaysian case Watson is using old references from almost 10 years ago, and thus his chapter (though published in 2011) does not reflect the major changes in LOI issues in the countries of Cambodia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Timor-Leste. Had he read Kosonen’s review article in the SEAMEO book (Kosonen and Young 2009) on LOI before he wrote his, he could have brought his chapter almost up to date, even if Kosonen’s 2009 article is also out of date by now in terms of the Philippine, Thai and Timor-Leste cases. In this field it is hard to keep up to date, as the developments are so fast. This book was greatly needed and fills a gap for many students in comparative education. It has turned out to be an interesting and informative volume which is a must for any student of education in South-East Asia. It provides a wonderful introduction to the field but a student writing on any of the eleven countries in the book needs to up-date himself or herself as changes, especially in the countries’ LOI, occur frequently.

References Kosonen, K., & Young, C. (Eds.) (2009). Mother tongue as bridge language of instruction: Policies and experiences in Southeast Asia. Bangkok: Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO). Available online at: http://www.seameo.org/images/stories/Projects/2009_Mother TongueBridgeLang/MT_compendium_Final_Book-08-05-09.pdf. Wedikkarage, L. K. (2009). Science education and English medium: The Sri Lankan experience. In B. Brock-Utne & G. Garbo (Eds.), Language is power. The implications of language for peace and development (pp. 260–267). Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota.

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