Education in Malaysia
From APEC HRDWG Wiki
Overview
Malaysia is located in the lower Pacific Rim; its education system offers free primary and secondary education for all children with six years of primary education being compulsory. Its education budget is 20% of the national budget.
Statistical information
The literacy rate among Malaysian citizens aged 10 - 64 years improved from 88.6% in 1991 to 93.5% in 2000. A comparison of the literacy rates at the state level revealed that there was an increase in the literacy rate for all states between 1991 and 2000, the biggest being for the state of Sabah where literacy increased from 79.3% to 86.5%. The states with the highest literacy rates in 1991 continued to record high rates in 2000.
The percentage of Malaysian citizens aged 20 years and over with post secondary, college or university education increased from 8.9% in 1991 to 16.0% in 2000. This pattern was also observed for all the major ethnic groups; for Malays the percentage increased from 10.3% to 17.3%, while for the Chinese the increase was from 9.0% to 16.5% and for Indians from 7.6% to 13.0%.
At 93 percent, Malaysia's literacy rate is one of the highest in the world. This reflects the enormous importance given to the pursuit of knowledge and education. Although schooling is not mandatory, over 99 percent of all six-year-olds are enrolled in schools, and more than 92 percent of all students go on to the upper secondary level.
In all three major ethnic groups, a higher percentage of males aged 15 years and over possessed paper qualifications than their female counterparts; the gap being 5.5 percentage points for Bumiputera, 4.9 percentage points for Chinese and 10.0 percentage points for Indians. This sex differential among the ethnic groups in favor of the males was also observed in all the states.
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