Perception on Chinese values: A comparison of Chinese secondary students studying at national secondary schools and Chinese independent schools in Malaysia

The Social Science Journal 52 (2015) 62–68

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Perception on Chinese values: A comparison of Chinese secondary students studying at national secondary schools and Chinese independent schools in Malaysia Poh Chua Siah ∗ , Sook Beng Christina Ong, Swee Mee Tan, Chzia Poaw Sim Faculty of Arts and Social Science Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman Jalan Universiti, Bandar Barat, 31900 Kampar, Perak, Malaysia

a r t i c l e

a b s t r a c t

i n f o

Article history: Received 29 August 2013 Received in revised form 30 June 2014 Accepted 30 August 2014 Available online 1 October 2014 Keywords: Education system Perception Chinese value National secondary schools Chinese independent schools Malaysia

This study aims to examine whether different educational systems will impose students with different perception on Chinese values. Cluster sampling method was used and 599 Chinese students from three national secondary schools (NSS) and two Chinese independent schools (CIS) in Malaysia were recruited. A questionnaire containing two sections namely background information and Chinese value scale developed by Chinese Culture Connection (1987) was distributed. The findings showed that the practice of Chinese cultural values indicated through the use of Chinese language in everyday life between respondents from NSS and CIS is about the same, but more respondents from CIS read or watch Chinese materials than those from NSS. Respondents from CIS and NSS viewed integrity and tolerance as the most important Chinese value. Respondents from NSS perceived Confucians ethos or human relationship as more important, whereas respondents from CIS chose loyalty to ideals and humanity. The findings suggested that the role of parents in the perseverance of Chinese culture and the influence of different school environment are equally important in determining the perception of Chinese values among secondary school students. © 2014 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Culture is a concept comprising multiple aspects shared by a large group of people (Geertz, 1973). The shared and permanent set of ethics, beliefs and attitudes in a country, region or organization are claimed to be embedded in a culture (George & Zahra, 2002; Hofstede, 2001). Hofstede’s (2007) definition of culture which is ‘the collective programming of the mind which differentiates the members of one group of people from another’ (p. 413) seems to synthesise the notion of culture. Since culture is a strategy that people have learned from generation

∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (P.C. Siah).

to generation aiming to deal with internal and external environment adaptation, it is believed that understanding the history of a society and its culture is a way to enhance one’s understandings of a given person’s worldview (Inglehart & Carballo, 1997). As culture has existed for a long time and is difficult to change (Schneider, 1989), people from a similar culture are therefore able to share some common schema, values and norm to interpret both the situation and humans’ behaviours (Vandewalle, Van Dyne, & Kostova, 1995). Kraft (1989) opined that culture could be categorized into deep-level culture and surface-level culture. The deep-level culture is usually referred to as values while the surface-level culture indicates cultural behaviour. Therefore, a close link between values and behaviours is observed where values are viewed as a principal driver of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2014.08.006 0362-3319/© 2014 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

P.C. Siah et al. / The Social Science Journal 52 (2015) 62–68

individuals’ behaviours (Agle & Caldwell, 1999; Hemingway & Maclagan, 2004). In other words, values do not only refer to fundamental beliefs which are consistent with those traditionally held by most individuals in a particular society (Elasmar & Hunter, 1997), but they also refer to the ideas that influence and direct our choices or actions; for example, how we perceive situations and problems, how we make decisions and the kinds of decisions we make (Gini, 1998). Hofstede’s (2007) belief on values being the core elements in culture that influence one’s preference for certain state of affairs over the other substantiated the notion of value mentioned previously. Generally, there are two types of values namely the Western values and traditional Chinese values. Differing culture and upbringing have resulted in the principles of traditional Chinese and Western values to be different. Western values according to Tan (2012) are usually associated with the term Western culture’ in which the roots can be traced back to Greek and Kleiber (2004 as cited in Tan, 2012) who believed that Western values stemmed from Christianity generally. Tan (2012) associated Western values to equality, empowerment and ethics as well as three subsidiary values namely non-hierarchy, innovation and modernisation. Traditional Chinese values on the contrary are usually related to Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism (Soon, 2003). Confucianism revival appears to be strongly in place and it has been promoted vigorously by Chinese officials and the significance of its value is constantly promoted because they are believed to be able to provide China with the much desirable moral order (Rarick, 2008). The Chinese have a strong orientation towards the past and the ideas of elders and predecessors are thought of as practically imperial edicts. Patriotism, honesty, harmony, loyalty, filial piety, industriousness, hierarchy, integrity, conflict avoidance and adaptation are identified as the major themes of traditional Chinese values (J. Lee, 1996; Reisman, 1992; Zapalska & Edwards, 2001). Even though there are differences between Western and Chinese values, most value measurements are created by Western social scientists and thus are not capable of capturing the unique Chinese cultural values. Therefore, Bond et al. designed a 40-item Chinese values survey (CVS) (Chinese Culture Connection, 1987). These 40-items were extracted from a pool of item that was collected from a number of Chinese social scientists who were asked to prepare a list of at least 10 ‘fundamental and basic values for Chinese people’ (p. 145). The CVS was used by many past researchers to identify which CVS dimensions are accounted for the differences among their subjects in the business context. For instance, Ralston, Gustafson, Cheung, and Terpstra (1993) assessed the differences and similarities in values among practicing managers in the US, Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China. In contrast to the above mentioned, this study will examine whether different educational systems will impose students with different perception on Chinese values. Thus, a brief historical background that led to the development of Chinese education in Malaysia has to be discussed.

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1.1. History of Chinese education in Malaysia In 2013, Malaysian Chinese comprised about 21% of the total population of Malaysia (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2013). Most of them migrated from southern China to Malaysia during the colonial period (late eighteenth to nineteenth centuries); during this time, the coloniser encouraged the recruitment of labourers from China and India (Li, 2003). The Chinese as well as their counterpart, the Indians were given the freedom to develop their own educational system under the British colonial government because they were seen as birds of passage who would return to their countries of origin after they had accumulated sufficient wealth (Gill, 2005). However, the educational policies proposed since preindependence caused the Chinese to face a lot of hindrances in developing and maintaining its school system. These policies included: (a) the Barnes Report of 1951 that proposed a national system of schools in which either Malay or English to be used as the only medium of instruction; (b) the Talib Report that made Bahasa Malaysia or Malay as the compulsory medium of instruction in secondary schools and universities; (c) the Education Act of 1961 that provided funding to Chinese secondary schools which had agreed to stop teaching in Chinese (Collins, 2006) and (d) the New Economic Policy that increased educational opportunities for Malay students but reduced them for Chinese and Indian students. Overall, Malaysia government achieved the goal of using Bahasa Malaysia or Malay as the medium of instruction at the secondary level by 1978, and in the universities by mid-1980s (Pong, 1994). Most Chinese regarded these policies as measures intended to phase out Chinese education in Malaysia. The Malaysian Chinese was undeterred by those policies and reacted against them by trying to set up a private university that finally failed; it was followed by a storm of protests causing the ‘Operation Lalang’ to be arrested (G. K. Brown, 2007). The establishment of Chinese cultural societies drew the participation of Chinese community in the preparation of joint memorandum on national culture to be sent to the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of Malaysia (Shi, 2006). Recently, a rally was called to protest the lack of qualified Mandarin-speaking teachers in Chinese primary schools. The protesters demanded the government to take action to solve this long-standing issue (W. L. Lee, 2012; Meena Lakshana, 2012). Having seen and experienced the challenges faced by their forefathers, most Malaysian Chinese uphold the importance of education as it is regarded as a crucial element in preserving their cultural identity. As a result, more than 90% of Malaysian Chinese today send their children to study at national-type primary schools rather than national primary schools (Segawa, 2007). 1.2. Chinese education in Malaysia today In Malaysia, there are two types of schools at the primary level namely national schools and national-type schools, made up of Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools. Both are government funded, but the medium of instruction of national-type schools is Mandarin and Tamil while

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the medium of instruction of national primary schools is Bahasa Malaysia (G. K. Brown, 2007). At the secondary level, there are 10 different types of public schools which are national secondary schools (NSS), fully residential schools, secondary Islamic religious schools, technical schools, vocational schools, special education schools, special model schools, sports schools, arts schools and SABK. Besides that, there are nine types of private schools namely academic primary, academic secondary, Chinese independent schools (CIS), expatriate schools, international schools, religious primary schools, religious secondary schools, special education schools, and correspondence schools private secondary schools, private secondary Islamic religious schools and international schools (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2012). Focusing on Malaysian Chinese, after undergoing 6 years of primary school, they may opt to study at government NSS or CIS, in which the features of the former are similar to national primary schools while the latter use Chinese language and are self-funded. There are 60 CIS scattered around East and West Malaysia, both in the urban and rural areas, with approximately 60,000 students and 5000 educationists (United Chinese School Association Committee’s of Malaysia, 2011). The CIS are privatised financially but they do not belong to certain private corporate or association; they are taken as non-profit making institutes owned by the Chinese community. Thus, the finance sources are partially granted from students’ school fees and partially collected from fund raising activities among the Chinese communities. They are being called as ‘independent’ instead of ‘private’ because they follow their own system of education which is rather different from the mainstream that is the NSS. Dong Zhong acting as the head of the system sets up different divisions to administer all 60 CIS by providing a unified curriculum, syllabus and examination system (United Chinese School Association Committee’s of Malaysia., 2011). Most of the CIS have their school mottos imposing Chinese values and philosophy such as ‘li’ (propriety), ‘yi’ (justice), ‘lian’ (honesty), ‘chi’ (honour), some with slight difference in wording but similar teachings in the sense of good moral such as ‘qin’ (diligence), ‘pu’ (thrifty), etc. (PLNet, n.d.). In the introduction of the Unified Curriculum of independent Chinese schools on Dong Zhong official webpage, the curriculum division declares that the unified curriculum for all the CIS is designed with ‘the principle to preserve and promote Chinese values and cultural legacy’ (United Chinese School Association Committee’s of Malaysia, 2011). Thus, there are elements of these moral values in the teaching syllabus, especially in Chinese language and History classes. Students in CIS are deemed to have better learning ambience of Chinese traditional values which have been asserted through the school syllabus, extracurricular activities such as 24 season drums, lion dance, Chinese orchestra and so on. The celebrations of Chinese festivals are immensely highlighted throughout the Chinese lunar calendar year too. CIS prioritise Mooncake Festival, Chap Goh Meh as can be seen in the platforms provided for students to demonstrate Chinese traditional performance (PLNet, n.d.). The school authority could also apply special holidays from the Ministry of Education for

certain Chinese festivals such as Qingming Festival or All Souls Day and the Day for worshipping Heavenly God on the 9th day of the first lunar calendar month (PLNet, n.d.). 1.3. Aims of the study One main aim of establishing CIS is to preserve the Chinese culture, therefore the course structures and medium of instruction at CIS are different from the NSS. Consequently, it is usually presumed that students studying at CIS are greatly influenced by Chinese cultural values compared to students studying at NSS. Nonetheless, as mentioned by Khor (2006), the preservation of Chinese culture in Malaysia is not only assigned to Chinese schools but also Chinese association and media. In other words, students who are studying at NSS could also be exposed to Chinese values through the Chinese media. However, to date, not many researchers explore this issue by using empirical approach. The Chinese education in Malaysia is a rather complicated social issue as it involves the cultural and political tensions between Malaysian government and Chinese community. This is because the Chinese community is concerned that the Chinese cultural identity will be phased out from the government educational policies (G. K. Brown, 2007). Since the medium of instruction and course structure of CIS and NSS is different, and education is regarded as an important way of transferring the Chinese cultural identity, it is important to know whether or not these two different educational systems would affect the experience of practicing Chinese language and the perception on the importance of Chinese values differently. The research questions of this study are as follows: 1. Is there any significant difference in the experience of practicing Chinese language between students studying at NSS and CIS? 2. What is the secondary school students’ perception on the importance of Chinese values? 3. Is there any significant difference in the perception on the importance of Chinese value between students studying at NSS and CIS? 2. Method 2.1. Participants A total of 599 secondary students were recruited from three NSS (n = 361) and two CIS (n = 238) in Malaysia. A total of 65.1% were males while the remaining 34.3% were females. The age of most of the respondents ranged from 14 to 18 years (M = 15.54, SD = 1.15). With regard to the respondents’ education background, 64.2% received their primary education at national-typed schools while 32.6% studied at national schools; as for secondary education, the percentage of respondents studying at NSS doubled those studying in CIS. Over 90% of all respondents claimed to frequently speak Mandarin with their parents and friends, and about 80% with their teachers. Approximately, 80% and 70% of the respondents reported to like reading Chinese newspapers and leisure books, respectively. About half of

P.C. Siah et al. / The Social Science Journal 52 (2015) 62–68 Table 1 Demographic background of respondents. Education

Used Chinese to communicate with...

Primary National type National Others

64.2 32.6 3.2

Secondary

Gender Age

CIS NSS

39.6 60.4

Males Females 14–15 16 17–18

65.1 34.3 41.8 38.1 20.1

Father Mother Friends Teachers Usually watch media or read in Mandarin Newspaper Leisure books Television Movie

90.8 92.2 93.8 80.8

87 76.5 68.5 45.8

them stated their preference in watching Chinese movies and 68.5% of them watching Chinese television shows (see Table 1). 2.2. Apparatus The questionnaire was made up of three sections which are demographic data, widely used languages and Chinese values survey (CVS). 2.2.1. Demographic data Respondents were asked to fill in their demographic information namely gender, age and education background. 2.2.2. Language used Respondents were required to choose the language (Chinese, English, Malay, others) that they frequently use with their acquaintances, specifically father, mother, teachers and friends and in different medium (newspaper, books, television and movie). 2.2.3. Chinese values The CVS encompassed of 40-adjective phrases (for example, filial, hardworking, perseverance, humility, loyalty) that are used to measure the perceived importance of Chinese cultural values (Chinese Culture Connection, 1987). Respondents were asked to indicate the level of perceived importance of each Chinese cultural value presented in a Likert scale with 1 = ‘very not important’ and 5 = ‘very important’. Matthew (2000) used the CVS to analyse his data and four factors were extracted; they are: (a) integrity and tolerant (CVS I); (b) Confucian ethos (CVS II); (c) loyalty to ideals and humanity (CVS III) and (d) moderation and moral discipline (CVS IV). The reliabilities of the four factors were reported as 0.82 for CVS I, 0.91 for CVS II, 0.82 for CVS III and 0.57 for CVS IV (Matthews, 2000). The four factors are made up of a few sub-factors. Firstly, CVS I is relevant to development of self and it consists of 17 items such as patience and sincerity. Secondly, CVS II is linked to relationships with others where 10 items such as benevolent

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authority and respect for tradition are asked. Thirdly, CVS III delves into social responsibility and nine items such as patriotism and solidarity with others are included. Lastly, CVS IV revolves around worldly wisdom and it is made up of three items namely wealth, sense of cultural superiority and repayment of good or evil of others. 2.3. Procedure Cluster sampling was used to invite students from CIS and NSS located in Perak to participate in this study. Based on the school list shown on the webpage of Malaysia Ministry of Education and school list on United Chinese School Association Committee’s of Malaysia, the principals of CIS and NSS in which majority of the student population is Chinese were contacted. Permission to conduct this study was sought and principals of three NSS and two CIS granted the permission. The counselling teachers of all five schools were then briefed about time and guidelines to fill in the questionnaires. The counselling teachers were given the authority to choose classes and allocate slots for the students to fill in the questionnaire. A token of appreciation was given to students who participated in the study. The completed questionnaires were collected approximately a week after the distribution. All the data were keyed in and analysed using SPSS software. 3. Results 3.1. Experiences of practising Chinese language 3.1.1. Speak the Chinese language Chi-square test for independence was used to examine whether or not a significant association between types of secondary schools (CIS vs. NSS) exists and whether Chinese language is widely used in communication or in reading or watching media. The results, as can be seen in Table 2, show that more respondents from CIS compared to those from NSS frequently speak Mandarin with their teachers (93.7% vs. 72.3%), 2 (1, n = 599) = 42.34, p < 0.001. However, fewer respondents at CIS speak Mandarin with their friends than those at NSS (88.7% vs. 97.2%), 2 (1, n = 599) = 18.19, p < 0.001. 3.1.2. Read and watch Chinese materials More respondents from CIS prefer watching Chinese television programmes (85.6% vs. 76.5%) or read leisure books in Chinese (91.7% vs. 75%) compared to those at NSS, 2 (1, n = 599) = 6.04, p = 0.014 and 2 (1, n = 599) = 24.81, p < 0.001, respectively. 3.2. The perception on the importance of Chinese value among secondary school students Integrity and tolerance were regarded as the most important value by the respondents (M = 4.41, SD = 0.44), followed by loyalty to ideals and humanity (M = 4.13, SD = 0.59), Confucian ethos (M = 3.75, SD = 0.54) and moderation and moral discipline (M = 3.66, SD = 0.76).

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Table 2 Percentages of respondents at CIS and NSS who frequently used Mandarin. To speak

CIS

NSS

Chi-square

p-value

Fathers Mothers Teacher Friends

90.8 91.6 93.7 88.7

90.9 92.5 72.3 97.2

0.01 0.17 42.34 18.19

0.949 0.681 <0.001 <0.001

Newspaper TV Leisure books Movie

93 85.6 91.7 53.2

88.1 76.5 75 48.4

3.67 6.04 24.81 1.17

0.055 0.014 0.001 0.279

To read or watch

3.3. The perception of Chinese value between students studying at NSS and CIS t-tests for independent sample means was used to examine the differences in the perception of CVS between respondents from CIS and NSS. Participants from NSS regarded Confucian ethos as more important (M = 3.79, SD = 0.48) compared to those from CIS (M = 3.67, SD = 0.62), t (599) = 2.65, p = 0.012. Nonetheless, respondents from CIS claimed that loyalty to the ideals and humanity as more important (M = 4.19, SD = 0.59) than those from NSS (M = 4.09, SD = 0.59), t (599) = 2.01, p = 0.045. No significant difference was found in the two remaining factors (see Table 3). 4. Discussion Due to the multi-cultural context and historical reasons, Malaysian Chinese have been found to attach closely with Chinese culture, especially the perseverance of cultural identity through education. As shown in the respondents’ educational background, most of them studied at Chinese national-type primary schools and a majority of them chose CIS instead of NSS at the secondary level. Although the tuition fees for CIS are relatively high and the certificate is not endorsed by the Malaysian government, there are still about 10% of Chinese parents who choose to send their children to CIS after completing their primary education (United Chinese School Association Committee’s of Malaysia, 2011). The increasing numbers of application at CIS causes many applications to be rejected (Kong, 2013; Lee, 2010). Their willingness to pay for education shows the intensity of Chinese in Malaysia in upholding Chinese medium. According to Gill, Yuen, Ong, and Hao (2013, p.1045), it is so intense that opponents of Chinese medium education have attributed it as an obstacle to national unity because unlike people in Hong Kong and Singapore who resisted mother-tongue education and supported

bilingualism, respectively, Chinese medium education in Malaysia as highlighted by Chong and Norsimah (2007) is defended by hua jiao dou shi (fighters of Chinese education). Therefore, the objectives of this study are, firstly, to explore whether is there any significant difference in the experience of practising Chinese language between students from CIS and NSS, and secondly, to investigate the respondents’ perception on the importance of Chinese values. The last objective is to find out whether is there any significant difference in the perception on the importance of Chinese values between students from CIS and NSS. With regard to the students’ experience of practising Chinese language, not surprisingly, fewer students in NSS use the Chinese language with their teachers than those students in CIS. This could be due to the medium of instruction used in NSS is Bahasa Malaysia and teachers serving in these schools are from diverse backgrounds. Interestingly, it is found that students in NSS tend to speak Mandarin with their friends more than students studying in CIS. Similar to Gill et al.’s (2013) findings, their respondents too prefer using Mandarin within and outside school compounds. They believed that the students’ ethnicity and national identity are best portrayed by Mandarin because of its strong association with their Chinese roots (Gill et al., 2013). The results also showed that over 90% of respondents’ parents speak Mandarin with their children, regardless of their background. This indicates the crucial role that parents play in the perseverance of Chinese culture in Malaysia. Even though these parents send their children to study at NSS where Malay is the medium of instruction, they frequently communicate with their children in Mandarin instead of English, Malay or other languages. This is proven by Brown (1994) who claimed that, ‘language is a part of a culture, and a culture is a part of language; these two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture’ (H. D. Brown, 1994). However, the role of parents

Table 3 Comparisons between participants from CIS and NSS in the four CVS scores. Factors

CIS

NSS

t-value

p-value

Integrity and tolerance Confucian ethos Loyalty to ideals and humanity. Moderation and moral discipline

4.42 (0.51) 3.67 (0.62) 4.19 (0.59) 3.71 (0.81)

4.39 (0.39) 3.79 (0.48) 4.09 (0.59) 3.63 (0.73)

0.49 −2.65 2.01 1.29

0.625 0.012 0.045 0.196

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in instilling good cultural values among Malaysian Chinese is seldom discussed in past studies. The impact of different educational systems on the use of Chinese language was also noticeable as fewer respondents from NSS prefer watching television programmes or reading leisure books in Chinese compared to those studying at CIS. Their preferences towards Chinese language in different media can be linked to the bond they possessed with their Chinese roots. Majority of Gill et al.’s (2013) respondents who are studying in CIS also preferred to use Mandarin for various purposes. They believed that the constant use of Chinese language guaranteed its survival and its importance would not diminish (Gill et al., 2013). Delving into the students’ perception on the importance of Chinese values, the results showed that integrity and tolerance is regarded as the most important value by all the respondents, followed by loyalty to ideals and humanity, Confucian ethos and moderation and moral discipline. Results of this study suggested that self-development (integrity and tolerance—CVS I) and social responsibility (loyalty to ideals and humanity—CVS III) are perceived by the respondents as the most important values. It is also worth noting that respondents from both schools have the same perception whereby self-development is the most important cultural value. This result suggested that the influence of Chinese Cultural values on students from both CIS and NSS specifically on the development of oneself is related to their responsibility in the society (Zheng & Guang, 2007). This is reflected in the Confucian philosophy of ‘xiu shen qi jia zhi guo ping tian xia’, or, literally translated as ‘cultivate oneself, put family in order, govern the state and pacify the world’. Comparing the perception of Chinese values between students from CIS and NSS, it was found that respondents from CIS put more emphasis on loyalty to the ideals and humanity than those from NSS while respondents from NSS perceived Confucian ethos as more important than those from CIS. Matthews (2000) asserted that loyalty to the ideals and humanity is related to social responsibility while Confucian ethos is related to human relationship. These differences may be due to the different school environment they are currently in. Respondents from CIS may hold strongly to the belief that educational success leads to a better life where a high social status is the main element. Huang and Gove (2012) asserted that social class is associated with occupations where only well and highly educated people will become leaders and contribute to society. The four social strata based on occupation: scholars (Shi), farmers (nong), workers (gong) and businessmen (Shang) (Park and Chesla, 2007 as cited in Huang and Gove, 2012) which was promoted by Confucius may have caused many Chinese including the respondents of this study to prioritise social responsibility. Having educated in a multi-ethnic environment, respondents from NSS may have the tendency to conform to the culture of the majority. It can be said that students studying in NSS prefer keeping themselves disinterested and pure in many situations. Sometimes, they are susceptible to feeling contented with their positions in life to avoid assertive behaviour which may cause conflict and a lack of harmony in their opinions. Hence, they regard human

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relationship as more important. Nonetheless, due to the lack of studies that explore the feelings of Chinese students who study at national schools, the results cannot be generalised. More studies are needed to examine this possibility.

5. Conclusion In sum, the results of this study showed the impacts of different school systems in Malaysia on the experience of practising Chinese language. Students who are studying at NSS have fewer chance to practise Chinese language in the school compound and they also rarely read Chinese materials or watch Chinese television programmes. Nonetheless, their experience of practising Chinese language with their family members is about the same with those from CIS. In terms of the use of Chinese language among friends, students at NSS practise Chinese language with their friends more frequent than those at CIS. The perceptions on the importance of Chinese values between students from CIS and NSS are quite similar; both groups of students perceive integrity and tolerance and moderation and moral discipline as the top two most important Chinese values. This reflects the influence of Chinese culture on the close connection between the development of self and social responsibility. It is also interesting to observe that the multi-cultural environment in NSS may have caused students from NSS to perceive Confucians ethos or human relationship as more important than those from CIS. Shedding light on the perception of Chinese values among secondary school students in Malaysia, this study has elucidated responses directly from the affected group of people. However, the significant contribution of parents in the perseverance of Chinese language and culture should not be neglected because besides charity, education also starts at home. Generally, Malaysia can obtain a profusion of benefits such as economic value and ability to compete in this era of globalisation if Chinese medium education as well as Chinese language are well maintained. These can be platforms for Malaysia to promote unity in diversity.

6. Limitation of the study and suggestions Due to the difficulties of getting permission from schools to conduct the study, recruiting participants from more secondary schools appear to be a hindrance. Therefore, the interpretations of the results of this study need to be interpreted with cautions and cannot be generalised. Moreover, the items used in the Chinese values survey seem to be too abstract for some students as they are written in proverb. To rectify the problem highlighted, an interpretation of each item was prepared for the teachers so that explanation made to the students can be in a standardized manner. Future researchers may consider simplifying the items of Chinese values survey to layman’s terms so that this survey can be used to test population whose level of Chinese language is not as high as the natives in Taiwan or China.

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