1.0 Introduction
Intercultural competence is defined by Taylor (1994) as “a transformative process through which the foreigner develops his or her adaptive capacity, altering his or her perspective to effectively understand and adapt to the demands of the host culture, Hence, learning to deal with different cultures effectively requires cultural awareness, communicative competence, as well as personality traits like empathy and flexibility, self-awareness along with a conceptual understanding others’ values, norm and beliefs.”
Malaysia is a country which is Multi-cultural, it’s population is made up of 3 major races, which are the Malays, Chinese and Indians stated in order of the most dominant in number based on population. It is then divided into the minority listed as other races, such as the Sikhs and the indigenous people. Even the history of Malaysia before its independence has been a nation filled with a multi-cultural background. It is amazing that a country like Malaysia that has so many cultures which are different in among its races, are able to come together as one country which is able to survive in peace among each other save only a very few instances such as May 13th 1969.
This ability to keep peace among each and every race in Malaysia is very unique compared to other countries where there are multi-racial yet still are unable to live peacefully among one another. As such, it is clear to see that the people of Malaysia have quite competent intercultural communications skills. However, due to an education system which allows the existence of vernacular school, the intercultural communication competence of these kind of school leavers are still yet not known.
A vernacular school is defined as a school which main medium of communication is a certain language other than the Malaysian’s national language for example a Chinese medium schools’ primary language of communication would be mandarin and an Indian medium schools would be in Tamil. As such, certain subjects will be thought in their medium language and all social interaction involve the medium language of communication causing the practice of other languages to be severely reduced. Due to the school being only of a single medium language as its main communicative language, the majority of these school’s population are filled with only single races and it is not a multicultural populated school.
As such, the purpose of this research is to discover the competence of Vernacular school leavers to communicate with other people of different culture groups when they come out of a vernacular environment of the vernacular schools that they were from and into the environment of higher learning where there are pushed out from a vernacular environment. As institutions of higher learning are places where people of all races and culture come together to study and attain their tertiary education. The environment of vernacular school leavers changes and they are now being put into an environment where they have to begin to communicate with other people of different races and cultures.
This research will highlight how vernacular school leavers feel about engaging in intercultural communication as well as whether they are able to adapt or reject multicultural environment which they are not necessarily used too. It will also reveal the principle feelings and opinions of how they view people who are not from their culture and the opinions that they have about communicating with people outside their own culture as well as out of their environmental norm.
1.1 Interest and Personal Background
Intercultural communication is a challenge for many people from many different countries with multiple different ethnic groups. Malaysia however, is a very special country as this country was founded upon 3 major races and gained its independence by uniting the 3 major races when in the process of negotiating its independence from the British. As, such unity among different cultures is a factor that unquestionably made Malaysia what it is today. Though unity and peace among races is a very big privilege that citizens of this country have. It can often be taken for granted by its people. Different cultures, which have different value systems and even religious systems have been integrated and respected by all the races. This silent understanding is the very thing that keeps all races at relative ease with each other although originating from different races.
However, before Malaysia receive its independence the races of Malaysia were divided by their immigration designated work places. For example, before Malaysia’s independence under the colony of the British, Chinese people were working in the tin mines as miners, Indian people were working at rubber estates and the Malay people were mostly involved in politics, agriculture and education. As, such the existence of vernacular schools came about as before the races were united each of them had their own system and medium language of communication in school based on their race and language.
One would think that, once Malaysia attained its independence, all schools would become national schools and the medium of communication would be the national language stated in the constitution agreed upon by all during the quest for independence. This wasn’t the case as different language medium school were allowed to operate the way they were operating only including the national subject as a compulsory subject for all school to learn. As such, students that go to vernacular schools during their childhood to teenage years, have little to no contact with people from other races in Malaysia. They are not in an environment where they can know from first hand communication about other cultures and customs of people that do not share the same race and neither do they know what it feels like to be in a position where people may not necessarily share their culture and values as well as opinions on certain topics.
What inspired me to come up with this title for my thesis is, while doing my degree in a local university away from home and being in a state which is predominantly Muslim where my own race is not the majority, I have observed certain things about vernacular school students in regards of the way they carry themselves when they are out of their environment of comfort. I have also heard things from my friends who are studying overseas about vernacular school students and the way they adapt or reject their environment when being away from home. As such, it is important gauge the vernacular school leavers competence when they are not in a vernacular environment anymore. Moreover, little to no research has been done on this topic. Therefore, I would like to carry out this research, to find out more about how vernacular school leavers feel about communicating as well as their intercultural communication competence with people out of their norm and how they adapt to an intercultural communication environment when they get into their tertiary education years.
1.2 Malaysia as a multi-cultural nation
To provide a context for this research, it is important to know the history of Malaysia, its demography, geography and this countries languages. As well as its multi-racial history and roots. When, Malaysia received independence from the British in 1957, the country was already a multi-cultural nation with three “official” major cultural groups of people in addition to a European governing elite. These were the Malays and indigenous people of Malaysia, known as “Bumiputera”, the majority of this group of people were Muslim and spoke a certain dialect of Malay depending on which part of Malaysia they come from. Next were the Chinese, whom the majority of practiced a mix of Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist faith, speaking one out of a number of dialects as well as Mandarin, The last group that form the majority of the cultural group are the Indians who were Hindu Tamils speaking one out of a number of dialects as well as the official Tamil.
During Malaysia’s early independence, the economic model was an economy based on race. It was structured in a way that the Bumiputera’s were mostly rural farmers or people of the forest governed by the Sultans. The Chinese worked in the tin mines as the British’s manual labour, as such the Chinese community had their own places of worship, community organizations, as well as schools that conducted its education using the medium language of mandarin using texts and other educational materials imported from China. The Indians worked in the rubber estates, as such the Indian community also had the same things that the Chinese people had listed above. The British had chosen to not make any effort to build a uniform Malayan peninsular identity among the population causing the three communities to largely exist segregated from each other. When speaking about Malaysia in 1998, Zaleha Kamaruddin states:
[T]he most salient feature of the multiethnic society is that colonialism of almost a hundred years, has contributed to a situation in which, until the recent development plan periods . . . , each ethnic group has remained almost entirely culturally distinct from the others. In short, the Chinese and Indians have managed to preserve their own social and cultural identities within a new common environment and this has been made possible through a network of overlapping cleavages in the society in the form of each group’s own social institutions, religious institutions and educational system.
Shamsul A.B. has a very good description on how the British-trained anthropologists helped build the core ethnic identities found in Malaysia today that were highlighted in the constitution and in the New Economic plan as well as its successors: “In the Malaysian context, colonial knowledge not only elaborated and explained about but also sustained and justified the whole concept of plural society through the construction of essentialized ethnic categories…[N]ation-states…have become the natural embodiments of history, territory and society built entirely on colonial knowledge.”
However, an elite school system established by the British covered the other systems of education and helped in producing a very miniature amount of, Anglicized multicultural elite: “Only at the highest level of government and professions, is there extensive, effective contact between members of the three racial groups and even then, it is largely on the common grounds of the adopted British culture within each of the major ethnic societies of Malaysia, this westernized elite remains aloof from the more traditionally united ethnic communities that make up most of the urban and virtually all of the rural population.”(Gudeman,2002). As such, the elitist are the only people who can have competent intercultural communication skills, whereas the people of the norm were not competent at intercultural communication as they were not extensively exposed to that environment.
During the time of Malaysia’s independence, a very complex social, religious, and linguistic reality was embedded beneath this simple tri-racial majority social categorization. In which that Malaysia, which has three ethnic groups ignores the multiplicity within these communities. The categories that were constructed are a construction of how the British treated each of the groups. The Malays were categorized as “natives”, whereas the Chinese and the Indians were categorized as “immigrants” as a single racial groups with uniform culture and identity even though there was a great multiplicity of culture and identity within each of the races. The builders of the new nation-state of Malaysia inherited the categories and recognized them in the Constitutions. In which by doing so, created a self-fulfilling premonition in which, over time, individual citizens have become more of their own individual races but not united in a Malaysian culture. Even today, the three major races of Malaysia are stull composed of many sub-communities of culture, language and practice of religion.
1.2.1 Malaysian Education System.
As my research is about vernacular school leavers in Malaysia, it is also important to understand how the Malaysian Education System is structured and how students graduate from the Malaysian Education System. First of all, education is introduced to a learner at pre-school age. Young kids get sent to pre-school between the ages of 4 to 6. Pre-school education in integrated in the National Education System under the Education Act, 1996. The aim for pre-school education was to provide a strong foundation to prepare the child for formal education. Learning components that pre-schoolers need to be thought are such as language and communication, physical development, cognitive development, socio emotional development, moral and spiritual growth as well as aesthetic and creativity.
Primary education is introduced to children at the ages of 7-12 (Year 1 to Year 6), education at this levels goal is to give the child firm foundations in basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as focusing on thinking skills and values across the curriculum. It is at this age as well, that the parents of the child decide whether they should send their child to a national school or a vernacular type national school. The difference between both types of schools are the medium of instruction. In national school the medium of instruction is the Malay language whereas in vernacular schools the medium of communication is either the Chinese language or Indian language. However, in both types of school the national language of Malay is a compulsory subject and English is also a compulsory language with is labelled as a second language in all schools. Although chines, tamil, and other indigenous languages are also offered as subjects in national schools. There are 2 phases in primary education in Malaysia, they are lower primary or phase 1 (Year 1-3) and Phase 2 (Year 4-6). Primary education end at year 6 and they are transitioned to secondary school after taking a national exam called UPSR (Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah) or Primary School Achievement Test.
After attaining their primary education, the children who have now become teenagers move in to the realm of secondary education. Secondary education is an extension of primary level education. Education at this level is mostly general in nature and is the same as primary school where it is divided to upper and lower secondary level. However, a special transition year program known as ‘Remove Class’ for pupils of the national-type Chinese and Tamil primary school who have failed their Malay language UPSR exam. At the lower secondary school level, (Form 1-Form3) which takes 3 years to complete education is given in a very general nature. All subjects are core subjects and no student is exempted from any of the core subjects. However, students can take additional language subjects such as the Chinese Language, Tamil Language and Arabic Language as they are offered by their selected schools. After completing the curriculum of lower secondary, students sit for another national exam called the ‘Peperiksaan Menegah Rendah’(PMR) or Lower Secondary Assessment, however the PMR has now been abolished and a new system called ‘Pentaksiran Tingkatan 3’(PT3) or Form Three Assessment is now the name of the national exam at this level.
After completing their lower secondary, Malaysian students are then transitioned into upper secondary school education. At this phase of their education, the students are now specialised into streams of various disciplines, such as science, arts, technical, vocational and religious discipline, specific schools are designated for each discipline. These schools are known as academic schools, technical schools, religious schools and vocational schools. After completing the curriculum, students sit for an examination to get their ‘Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia’(SPM) or Malaysian Certificate of Education(MCE)
After completing the SPM/MCE students then have the option to continue their education to Pre University programs provided by the government or the Private Universities. Students who have done their SPM depending on their results have access to Matriculation, Form 6, Foundation and Diploma Courses provided by the government. Whereas if a student should want to continue studying and venturing to private education, they can do their A-levels there, SAT’s and many more options for them to continue to pursue their tertiary education.
After completing the Pre-U programs students who qualify through government forms of Pre-U programs are placed in to a system called the University Placement Unit and they are then placed into the local universities around Malaysia.
As of 2014- 2016, based on statistic generated by the ministry of education in Malaysia, enrolment in primary schools in Malaysia has seen a decrease from 2,698,883 to 2,684,973 students. In terms of Secondary school, enrolment has also decreased from 2,234,621 to 2,145,298 students.
1.2.2 Vernacular Schools in Malaysia
The earliest advancement of the education system in Malaysia can be traced to the 15th century when receiving formal education was still considered a privilege of feudal societies. It was not until the British colonialization did massive groups of workers originating from India and China immigrate to the land of Malaya as Malaysia was known at the time and extended their network. Due to the growing demand for education opportunities, each ethnicity had to develop their own vernacular schools and curriculums under the British divide and conquer policy. During the time of the British colonisation there were 4 types of schools which medium of instruction were either in, Malay, English, Tamil and Chinese. However, after World War II, the education system in Malaysia had to face the challenge of being revived and built with a national image on the path towards attaining Malaysia’s independence.
The Malaysian Education system has evolved and is still evolving, and there were major education reports, policies and incidents that have affected the vernacular education in Malaysia. This timeline begins before Malaysia’s independence when in 1951, The Barnes Report was implemented to make all vernacular school national schools using one single uniform system with bilingual languages, i.e. Malay and English; secondary schools maintained the status of the English language as it’s medium of instruction. However, in 1952 The Fenn-Wu report was published and what it ultimately did was to try and promote trilingual by maintaining Chinese and Indian medium schools.
In 1956, The Razak Report was implemented where, all schools must adopt a common uniform syllabus where the primary schools were made up of Standard (Malays as the medium of instruction) and Standard-type (using Chinese, Tamil, or Engish as medium of instruction, where Malay and English are made compulsory subjects), Secondary schools however catered for children who have completed their primary education with satisfactory results, consisting of an independent and direct grant. This report also states the “the ultimate objective of educational policy in this country must be to bring together the children of all races under a national educational system in which the national language is the main medium of instruction, though we recognise that progress towards this goal cannot be rushed and must be gradual”. However due to the strong protest from the non-Malay communities on the ultimate objective, it was not included when Malaysia attained its independence and The Education Ordinance 1957 which was made based on the Razak Report removed “the ultimate objective” from its goals, as the individual races still wanted to prioritize the importance of their own language.
In the year 1960, The Rahman Talib Report was introduced with the emphasis that Malay language be the main language in schools, as well as a reintroduction of the “ultimate objective”. In the report, standard schools would now become National schools while standard-type schools (vernacular schools) were turned into National-type schools. The next year after the Rahman Talib Report was introduced, The Education Act 1961 which was based on the Rahman Talib Report was implemented. Where the common curriculum was established as such that Bahasa Malaysia would be the main medium of instruction and the use of Bahasa Malaysia and English as the mediums of the national public examination system. Due to the Education Act 1961 having a stipulation in section 21(2) which states that “if at any time the Minister is satisfied that a National-type primary school can suitably be converted into a National primary school, he may order that such primary school be converted into a National primary school.”, 54 Chinese secondary schools accepted the government grants and approved the conversion of their school into National-type (Chinese) secondary schools, while the remaining 16 Chinese schools choose to become Chinese independent high schools which carried on with the use of Chinese language as its main medium of instruction without taking any financial help or grants from the government. Some board of directors in the National-type (Chinese) secondary schools were divided in opinions and afterwards followed their counterparts making their schools the independent high schools.
In the year 1985, the proposal was made to have an Integration School Programme. This program was structured in a way that all three types of schools, for example national primary school and national-type (Chinese and Tamil) primary schools were placed in one area to help strengthen national unity. After strong protest from the Chinese community, the government decided to hold a talk to Chinese school representatives, Dong Jiao Zong on the 7th of November 1985 came to a compromise where the program would be replaced with the Student Integration Programme for Unity (Rancangan Integrasi Murid Untul Perpaduan) that encouraged combined extra-curricular activities amongst students from different streams of schools. The next year, 1986, The Ministry of Education officially distributed the Guidebook of Student Integration Programme for Unity to various schools. The response from the participating school were overall positive, however the book was shelved instantly after the change of the minister of education.
In the year 1995 the Ministry of Education officially begin the introduction of the Vision School Programme (Rancangan Sekolah Wawasan) which gathered three streams of schools on a single campus in order that sharing of facilities like canteens, libraries and halls however the administrative bodies were still separate as well as the teachers of each individual school. These first batch of vision schools were built under the 7th Malaysia Plan.
The next year, in 1996 amendments were made to the Education Act 1961. The new Education Act 1996, Removed section 21(2) about the power of the minister of education on converting National-type schools. Institutions of education were then categorised into government educational institutions, government-aided educational institutions and private educational institution. The national language status is now as the main medium of language in all institutions of educations in the National Education System except National-type schools or other educational institutions exempted by the Minister of Education in which the national language should be taught as a compulsory subject. However, in a national secondary school, the Chinese or Tamil language will be made available if the parents of no less than 15 people requests it.
The next change that happen in the education policy in Malaysia is the Implementation of PPSMI (‘Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English’) in 2003, making English the medium of teaching and learning the subjects of mathematics and science in national schools, Tamil national-type schools and secondary schools. In the year 2006 the Ministry of Education then reintroduced of Student Integration Programme for Unity (RIMUP) to again promote inclusiveness amongst students from national and national-type primary schools with the involvement of parents and teachers.
In the year 2009 after only 6 years of PPSMI the Cabinet of Malaysia decided to announce the abolishment of PPSMI and replaced in with MBMMBI (‘To Upload Bahasa Malaysia and to Strengthen the English Language’). The MBMMBI policy sets up the Malay language as the medium of instruction at the national schools and secondary schools, including the vernacular schools as well. In the year 2010, the Trust School Programme (Program Sekolah Amanah) was established in which the public sector and the private sectors formed a partnership to improve the quality of education, due to receiving success from the firs 50 Trust Schools, the government currently aims to increase the number of this trust schools to 700 schools by 2025. The last part of the timeline is that the Ministry of Higher Education in 2011 has now opened the Bachelor of Teaching Degree Programme for UEC graduates who obtained a credit in at least three UEC subjects and scored a minimum of grade C for Bahasa Malaysia as well as credits for History and English in SPM.
As the timeline evolves above, the one thing that is very prevalent in the vernacular schools is that they are very much against efforts that interfere with the way they operate their schools and are very selective with what they approve of being implemented in their new system. Especially the Chinese Vernacular School though the Ministry of Education tries to integrate the school together to form 1 national identity the Chinese Vernacular nearly always opposes the action. This supports the statement above in 1.2 where, “individual citizens have become more of their own individual races but not united in a Malaysian culture”.
As of 2015, the number of Chinese National type and Chinese Independent High Schools are respectively at 1295 schools and 60 schools. The number of Tamil National type schools are 524. Due to all Tamil school conforming to the system introduced by the Ministry of Education there are no Independent Tamil Schools.
1.3 Problem Statement
Although there are many vernacular school leavers within the institutions of higher learning in Malaysia, there are barely any studies done on the intercultural communication competence among these groups of people. For example, How, Chan, and Abdullah (2015), focused on the national language in Malaysia, which acts as a national symbol that raise a sense of “national unity”. While, Ting (2013) focuses on the multilingual education system in Malaysia regarding national integration. Othman, Ruslan and Ahmad (2012) intercultural communication in Malaysian Vision Schools. Further, Marsani, Singh, Jaganathan and Abdullah (2016) focused on the level of intercultural knowledge that can enhance intercultural awareness among Malaysian secondary school students.
I however have not been able to find any research on the intercultural communication competence of vernacular school students in Institutions of higher education in Malaysia. As, I have been exposed to vernacular school students in universities and colleges. The problems that I can see are such as vernacular school students like to gather in groups and excommunicate people who do not speak their language. This shows that they have a very exclusive culture where they only want to be with people who are the same as them. Besides that, many vernacular school leavers that I have met tend to not have a very strong command of any language other than their mother tongue or dialects of their mother tongue, this may have caused them to become intimidated by people who speak other languages than them causing them to not want to communicate with people that cannot speak the same language as them. Another factor as well is that these students are taught in an environment which only has the same culture and therefore they are unexposed to a multicultural environment causing them to not be able to mix with people who are not of the same background.
In terms of policy problems, what vernacular school students face that cause them to not be able to be interculturaly competent is that, by allowing the continual existence of vernacular school causes these types of students to be racially segregated. They only come into contact with people of other cultures through the Student Integration Programme for Unity (Rancangan Integrasi Murid Untul Perpaduan), which sadly based on my experience happened only once in my entire education after taking the PMR exam in form 3. The other problem, is that the medium of instruction and communication in these schools are in their own vernacular language. Where only the official assemblies are held in the national language, which is only once a week, whereas the daily assemblies tend to be held in their own vernacular language, causing the students to rarely hear or use the national language or English, as such often times students from vernacular schools have a poor command in other languages as they are not put in an environment that they can practice the languages that they have learned. Lastly, even though the government enacted the Education Act of 1961, which was to help solve the problem of ethnic segregation. The move was not successful as the national-type schools were still referred to as “Chinese School” or “Indian schools” as the language used within the curriculum and the internal culture of the school still remains identifiably as their respective culture.
As stated above in the contextualization of this research, as of 2015, the number of Chinese National type and Chinese Independent High Schools are respectively at 1295 schools and 60 schools. The number of Tamil National type schools are 524. Due to all Tamil school conforming to the system introduced by the Ministry of Education there are no Independent Tamil Schools. Due to the problems above, I feel that it is important that this research be carried out in hopes that it can help Vernacular school leavers become more competent in intercultural communication if there is a need for that which I personally believe the need exists as justified by the problems stated in this section.
1.5 Research Questions
The problems briefly listed and identified in the above researches, and limited understanding of the concepts of intercultural competence in (Taylor,1994) led me to develop the following general questions.
Are Malaysian Vernacular school leavers competent in communicating interculturaly in institutions of higher learning in Malaysia?
This question guides the research overall, but the investigation includes more insightful questions:
1. How do Vernacular school leavers experience friendship among people of another race and culture in institutions of higher learning in Malaysia?
Friendship can provide rich data for understanding intercultural communication (Sias et al., 2008) and, so, researching the meaning of this concept in terms of vernacular school leavers in institutions of higher learning and their ability to communicate interculturaly, can provide some truths into their perceived cultural exchanges. I do not have the intention to assess, evaluate, or answer the question as to whether or not these group of people have been successful in achieving this objective. Rather, I want to investigate on the way they experience intercultural communication during their time in the institutes of higher learning. It is crucial that I make this distinction very clear as I do not intend to use a quantitative measurements or tests to assess the success, or otherwise, of Vernacular school leavers intercultural communication competence and experience in institutions of higher learning in Malaysia. Rather, I will use in-depth interviews to revel their intercultural communication experience and how they experience those encounters.
2. What are other factors that may motivate or demotivate Vernacular school leavers to experience intercultural communication in institutions of higher learning in Malaysia?
The focus of this question is any additional intercultural experiences that may have motivated or demotivated the Vernacular School leavers from experiencing intercultural communication on institutions of higher learning in Malaysia. These experiences possibly arise from the students’ intercultural experiences with their social groups, out of their interaction with individuals from the foreign racial group, or out of other experiences in general. Nevertheless, it is crucial to address them because they may have some influence on the intercultural experience and competence of vernacular school students during their time in the institutions of higher learning in Malaysia.
3. How if at all, does the whole experience of being in the Malaysian institutions of higher learning impact their worldviews and the identifications of themselves?
This question is motivated by the concept of racial identification, which is an identification related to being a Malaysian national. However, the idea of self-identifications and worldviews in this question are expanded to cover other forms of self-identification such as being a Chinese, Indian, Malay, Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian. Therefore, this question covers their race and religious self-identifications which may have come to exist as a result of their experience in institutions of higher learning in Malaysia.
In order to answer these research questions, I will structure this study’s findings into three chapters; the first being “Experiencing Friendship in Institutions of Higher Learning in Malaysia”, the second chapter being, “Motivating or Demotivating Experiences for Intercultural Communication”, and the final chapter which is “Worldviews, Identifications and Intercultural Communication”. The first chapter of the finding will discuss the first research question and each subsequent chapter will answer each questions respectively.
1.6 Structure of the thesis
This chapter has introduced both the research problem through which the intercultural communication competence of Vernacular school leavers in institutions of higher learning in Malaysia will be investigated, as well as highlighting the importance of this study. The next chapter, will focus on reviewing the studies that have been conducted on Intercultural communication among students who have been put into situation where this kind of communication has to happen. Many of these studies follow essentialist approach that may have oversimplified the cases of intercultural communication among vernacular school students and the self-identification that may have played a role in their intercultural communication experiences. The third chapter will focus on the methodology that will be used in this study. It will put emphasis on the methodology that will be used in collecting and analysing data.
The fourth chapter will then present the first of the chapters regarding the findings. It will focus on the experience of friendship of this studies participants. It will show how their individual experiences vary depending on factors like self-identification as well as their worldviews. The fifth chapter will put focus on the communication experiences that some participants have had with people of different culture who are not in the institutes of higher learning. These experiences are important as they may have stimulated the motivation or demotivation of the participants’ willingness to experience intercultural communication with individuals who they view as out of their social circles. The final findings chapter will discuss how the general experiences of being in Malaysian institutions of higher learning have changed the participants’ self-identification and worldviews that the participants may have or have not had (re)constructed as the effects of their intercultural communication experiences in the institutions of higher learning in Malaysia. Lastly, chapter 7 will present the conclusions and discussions section of this study. It also highlights the limitations and the importance of future studies on vernacular school leavers in institution of higher learning anywhere because they will continue to be a presence on the campuses of many universities across the world in the future.