National schools are envisioned to be where young Malaysians from different backgrounds learn to live together, but developments over the decades may have proved otherwise.
Smaller and smaller percentages of non-Malay students enrol in national schools, with many flocking to vernacular and private schools, citing higher quality of education.
With the majority of students in Bahasa Malaysia-medium national schools being Malay by ethnicity, some parents are concerned that their children are growing up in an insular environment.
In particular, some Malay parents worry their children only have friends of the same ethnicity, despite growing up in multicultural Malaysia.
Also at peril is their mastery of the English language, said one parent who spoke to Humans of Kuala Lumpur.
So how do you raise cosmopolitan, English-speaking children, without leaving the national school system?
This mother has found a way:
"I have seven children - five girls and two boys - and it is like running a business.
"You have to have a timetable, you have to wake up knowing what is going to happen that day. Everything has to be prepared.
"We have seven children but we took in exchange students as well. Our first exchange student was a girl from New Zealand.
"They come from all over the world - they come here, and when it's time to leave, they're crying because this has become a home for them, even with all the little fights that have happened.
"Actually, in Malaysia you go to school and speak Malay, and you come back home and speak Malay - and in between all that, you're expected to know English.
"So when the exchange students came, I'd make a deal with them - I'd say I would speak to them in Malay, but they had to speak to my kids in English.
"I wanted my kids to learn more; I wanted them to know about the other cultures because ultimately, Malaysia is a cosmopolitan - what is the point of living in such a multicultural place and not learning about one another's culture?
"My daughter got married to a German exchange student who was living with us. She lives in Melbourne now with four kids, and we still take exchange students in."
This story was first published on the HUMANS OF KUALA LUMPUR Facebook page. In this photography project, Mushamir Mustafa takes pictures of random people in Kuala Lumpur, who share with him a story from their lives. It features on Malaysiakini every weekend.
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