Schooling in Malaysia

This Note reviews Malaysia's educational history, including trends in schooling attainment and policy actions taken. It then looks at recent attendance among Malaysian children to assess variation in school enrollment as a reflection of more recent policy changes and as a basis for projecting school participation, and, indirectly, school attainment, into the future. Notable among the study's findings were the following: (1) school attendance levels among Malaysian children respond to changes in both family resources and costs of attending school; (2) Malaysian education policies designed to foster schooling among Malays succeeded admirably; and (3) what the Malaysian government does in the schooling arena will affect not only future educational growth, but the distribution of that growth among ethnic groups, urban and rural residents, and boy and girl children. A related RAND report, R-3147-AID, discusses the role these results could play in shaping future education policy.