Joint Government-Malay Community Efforts to Improve Malay Educational Achievement in Singapore.

This article focuses on the joint attempt by the Singapore Government and the minority Malay Community during the decade from 1982 to 1992, primarily through the formation of Mendaki (the Council on Education for Muslim Children), to tackle the problem of Malay educational underachievement. It analyzes the complex interplay of social, economic and political factors that led to the formation of Mendaki. The strategies adopted by Mendaki to improve Malay educational achievement will also be examined, along with the problems it encountered, in particular with regard to its legitimacy among the Malay community. A major theme running through the article is that the issue of Malay educational underachievement is closely related to, and cannot be considered in isolation from, wider political, social and economic trends pertaining to the problems of interethnic harmony in a multiethnic society . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]