'When schooled, a child becomes a man'. That may be, but fat chance if your school is in Putrajaya, Pontian, Pasir Mas or any other town in Malaysia beginning with P or not.

While major nations in the world build their future with successful education systems, Malaysia still cannot make up its mind up on whether schools are about nation-building or brain-building.

And when the dust settles decades from now, may it be known that one part of the jigsaw that never fell into place for the nation's potential was the blatant constipation on the matter of education.

Our political leaders are without question, completely hopeless on this matter. And they are probably less bothered because their children are not to suffer. Plus, it helps them that most Malaysians have no opinion on education except on the teaching of mother tongues (thanks for all the fish, Alliance).

Vernacular schools in Malaysia are better than national schools in general, but in a general world they are still both lagging far behind. The math goes like this.

Malaysians want to earn more and more and have more and more Indonesian maids in their homes and condominiums. But their children are slowly getting more and more dysfunctional in challenging the world.

So Malaysians do what Malaysians do best - pretend like there is no problem and repeat this senselessly in our media till all of the constituents are convinced there is no problem.

So Mr Prime Minister here is the deal, and you can throw it along with the bath water after this - Malaysia needs a single schooling system in place. One - not two.

These schools will have to teach mother tongue languages efficiently and fastidiously. The Chinese/Tamil education activists will have to square with the idea that their language is only a subject in schools though communities will be allowed to participate in processes to ensure that the language is taught well.

The kids will be able to write, read and speak in their ethnic language without question. It can even be a requirement for passing their primary education. Malay language activists are not having a field day anyway. Maths and Science, the subjects of progress, have been taken away from them already. And when they go home, their children are on the Net, reading and thinking in English.

These new kids are going to be more fluent in English, so the powers-that-be may just as well keep them all in one place. Apparently, the forces of Nickelodeon and MTV are too powerful to be cast away by censorship or RTM 1's inane programming. The urban kids are already halfway there, and as we urbanise all of Malaysia, the trends are going to be very telling in a very few years from now.

English, Maths, Science, Pigeon Breeding and Social Studies have to be all taught better. And that happens when the teachers are better. Better teachers are found when there is better training and selection of teachers. No more compromise on selection, and universities have to stop letting everyone graduate.

Standards have to appear from the bottom to the top, without fear or favour. And when these teachers are in the schools, their promotion system has to be based on teaching skills, not politics. Ethnic-based promotions have to stop.

Good teachers become good administrators. The assistant principal in my alma mater cannot speak English, someone translates for him when in conference. Nice man, but he should not be administrating a school, where 90 percent of the kids speak a language he can't.

Bring back school-based assessments with aptitude tests as entry requirements to universities. The tuition system must die, because it is killing education in Malaysia and reducing it to memorising the right notes and employing dishonest national exam paper collaborators.

Then maybe teachers can return to teaching.

The singular national school must be secular. Islamic Studies is a subject in school when an X number of students are Muslims. Murals of religious texts in schools disconcert parents. If many of us were upset that up to the early 80s, Christian missionary schools were placing too many Christian context and images in the schools, the same applies here. Schools are not places for proselytising.

This is about political will. Politicians have to act more as national leaders and less as leaders of racial zealousness. It is paradoxical when the minister in charge is actually the leader of his party's youth wing which prides in being racist over the years.

How do you kick racism out of schools? More aptly, how do you choose to kick racism out when your political survival is built on promoting intolerance? Would any minister, let alone the education minister, condemn the racist behaviour of teachers and headmasters in national schools?

So there you have it Mr Prime Minister - Malaysia cannot deal with the issue of vernacular schools because it is not honest with itself. Honesty to us is not important as much as learning how to deal with another within our own comfort zones borne out of indifference and intolerance.

No one sees the need of a national educational structure when no one believes that this is possible. Perhaps it is the politicians who will be needing the schooling.