Mission Education in Sarawak During the Period of Brooke Rule, 1840-1946.
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THE SARAWAK MUSEUM JOURNAL |
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Title :
Mission Education in Sarawak During the Period of Brooke Rule, 1840-1946. |
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Author :
Ooi Keat Gin |
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Abstract:
The Christian Mission schools in Sarawak provided a largely Western literary education that illustrated to the local population that a knowledge of the English languagewas a profitableacquisition for there was an economic demand for English-educated graduates both by the Brooke Government and the European commercial enterprises. These Mission schools were used by the missionaries to preach Christian doctrine with the primary intention of obtaining converts while the Brooke Government looked to these English-medium schools as a source of supply ofpublic servants for its administrative machinery. To the Chinese who formed the majority of the student population, nothing mattered but the acquisition of a Cambridge School Certificate that was a passport to a clerical position in the Brooke civil service or in any ofthe European commercial houses and banks. The Dayaks in the rural outstations did not enjoy the same economic gains of a mission education as their urban Chinese counterparts but to a certain extent fulfilled the missionaries’ basic aim in their conversion to Christianity. In spite of the Brooke Government’s promotion of vernacular education that emphasizeda practical curriculum, the reality, particularly in urban Kuching, showed that the English medium academic curriculum dispensed by the urban mission schools was greatly demanded for its economic benefits.
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| DOI: XXXX |
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How to cite:
Ooi Keat Gin. (1991). Mission Education in Sarawak During the Period of Brooke Rule, 1840-1946. The Sarawak Museum Journal, XLII (63): 283-373 |
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References
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