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Educational Discourses and Literacy in Brunei Darussalam

Peter Martina
a
University of East London, London, UK

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 Educational Discourses and Literacy in
Brunei Darussalam
Peter Martin
University of East London, London, UK
Over the last century, the small Malay Islamic Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam, on
the northern coast of Borneo, has moved away from an oral tradition, to a print
culture and towards mass literacy. Discovery of oil in the early part of the 20th
century transformed the economic situation in the country, and led to major changes
and developments in the country. This paper explores one of the major transforma-
tions in Brunei, the development of education and the rise of literacy. The
introduction to the paper briefly describes the multilingual ecology of Brunei, an
ecology which is much more complex than official discourses would suggest. The
paper then provides an historical contextualisation of language and education
discourses in Brunei, specifically the discourses around the promotion of dwibahasa
(‘two languages’) in the education system, following independence in 1984, as well
as literacy in two languages, Malay and English. The final part of the paper focuses
on microethnographic analyses of classroom literacy practices, and these practices
are linked to the broader sociopolitical and educational transformations in Brunei.
Downloaded At: 03:05 15 April 2011

doi: 10.2167/beb494.0

Keywords: Brunei, literacy, education, dwibahasa, Malay, English

Introduction
Brunei Darussalam (henceforth Brunei), a Malay Islamic Monarchy on the
northern coast of Borneo, and South-east Asia’s newest independent state, has
a population numbering 348,000 (http://www.bruneipress.com.bn/brunei/
brunei.html). Despite the small population size, the country is linguistically
diverse. There are several varieties of Malay in use, including the official
language Bahasa Melayu, and Brunei Malay, a form of which is the language of
everyday communication. There are four other indigenous languages: Tutong,
Belait, Dusun (and Bisaya) and Murut (or Lun Bawang) used mainly in the
outlying regions of the country. In addition, the non-indigenous languages
include Iban, Penan and a number of Chinese languages.
In 1984 Brunei achieved independence from Britain after 96 years as a
British Protectorate. One important legacy of this period of British presence
was the English language. With independence in 1984 Brunei was declared a
‘sovereign, democratic and independent Malay Muslim Monarchy’ (Saunders,
1994: 175). Following independence Brunei has maintained its close ties with
Britain, although it has also begun to play an emerging regional and
international role. At the same time, it has retained and even emphasised its
traditional Malay monarchical structure based on the three tenets of ‘Malay’,
the Monarchy and Islam.

1367-0050/08/02 206-20 $20.00/0 – 2008 P. Martin

The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism Vol. 11, No. 2, 2008

206
 Educational Discourses and Literacy in Brunei Darussalam 207

This paper examines one of the major transformations in Brunei, the

development of education and the rise of literacy in Malay and English.
After first describing the multilingual ecology of the country, the paper
provides a historical contextualisation of education in Brunei, and examines
the discourses around language and education, with particular focus on the
promotion of dwibahasa (‘two languages’) in the country. The final part of the
paper focuses on microethnographic analyses of classroom literacy practices,
and links these practices to the wider sociopolitical and educational transfor-
mations in Brunei.

The Multilingual Ecology of Brunei Darussalam

It is only in the last two decades or so that research into the language
situation in Brunei has moved forward sufficiently to allow us to begin to
describe the multilingual ecology of the country. Prior to the 1980s there was
very little information on the languages of Brunei, exceptions being the
wordlists in Ray (1913) and the brief discussion in Cense and Uhlenbeck
(1958). Other, mainly ethnographic, sources do make brief mention of the
languages and language communities of Brunei, but their usefulness for
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linguistic or sociolinguistic studies is limited. One example is the well known

study of Hose and McDougall (1912) on the Pagan Tribes of Borneo, in which
there are a number of references to language use in territories controlled by
Brunei at the time.
A number of more recent ethnographic studies have made a significant
contribution to our growing knowledge of the language ecology of Brunei (for
example, Horton, 1985, 1987; Maxwell, 1980; McArthur, 1987), and they
provide indispensable information with regard to the ethnic make-up of
Brunei and the historical and ecological relations between the various
ethnolinguistic groups in the country. The first study entirely devoted to the
languages of Brunei, however, and which set the scene on the contemporary
linguistic situation in Brunei is the article by Nothofer (1991). This study, with
its inclusion of wordlists for each of the languages of Brunei and a chart
showing cognate percentages between these languages and Standard Malay,
clearly highlights the multilingual nature of Brunei. More recent, socio-
linguistic and sociopolitical sources on the languages of Brunei include Martin
et al. (1996) and Gunn (1997).
The languages of Brunei Darussalam can be categorised as supraregional,
indigenous and non-indigenous. The supraregional languages in Brunei are
Bahasa Melayu and English. The former, which closely resembles Bahasa
Malaysia, the national language of Malaysia, has been the official language
of the country since 1959 and, since 1985, one of the media of instruction in the
country’s bilingual system of education. English, due originally to the
historical links between Brunei and Britain, and subsequently to its role in
the bilingual system of education, also plays a significant role in the country.
The indigenous languages are those of the seven puak jati or ‘indigenous
groups of the Malay race’ (Government of Brunei 1961: 118
120). With the
exception of Brunei Malay and Kedayan, the other five languages are,
linguistically speaking, not dialects of Malay. Although all seven languages
 208 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

belong to the Austronesian language family, five of them (Tutong, Belait,

Dusun, Bisaya and Murut) are not closely related to Malay (cf. Nothofer, 1991,
who provides cognate percentages between these languages and standard
Malay). Significantly, none of the seven puak jati languages has a written
tradition, a point to which I will return.
There are certain groups in Brunei which are not constitutionally considered
to be indigenous, and the languages of these groups are usually referred to as the
non-indigenous languages of Brunei. These are Chinese, Iban, Penan and
Mukah. The largest of these communities, the Chinese, with around 50,000
speakers, has received little attention (although see Dunseath, 1996). There is
also a paucity of information on the Iban in Brunei, though a considerable
amount of work has been published on the Iban in the neighbouring Malaysian
state of Sarawak where Iban is the largest indigenous group (cf. Asmah, 1981;
Ariffin & Teoh, 1994). It is surprising that Iban has received so little attention as it
plays a significant role in the country, not only in intraethnic communication,
but also in interethnic communication in some inland areas of Brunei (Martin &
Sercombe, 1994). The two other language groups are very small and there are
only a small number of studies on the Penan, a formerly nomadic group (Martin
& Sercombe, 1994; Sercombe, 2003, 2006).
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A number of macro-level factors have had an important influence on the

language ecology of Brunei. Historically, a considerable number of ethnic
groups have come under Brunei’s sphere of influence. Pringle (1970: 44), for
example, cites an early Chinese source which lists 20 separate ethnolinguistic
groups. However, there is a dearth of historical information on these groups. It
is clear though that there has been a significant merging and fragmentation of
ethnic groups, and factors such as increased mobility, intermarriage and
conversion to Islam have played a role. This has, in part, led to large numbers
of people to be classified as Malays (cf. Brown, 1971; Maxwell, 1980). Major
factors in the changing demography of Brunei over the last century include the
large-scale economic changes and rapid development since the discovery of oil
in Brunei in the 1920s. Linked to this has been a movement away from the
interior towards the coast, where salaried labour, often in the oil industry, was
available. Settlers along the coastal strip in Brunei adopted the culture of the
coastal population and large numbers intermarried and converted to Islam.
Space does not allow detailed discussion about the change in the human
ecology but it is worth noting the comments of Hughes-Hallett who, in 1938,
remarked, with reference to one of the indigenous groups, the Belait, that
‘intermarriage with other peoples will before long submerge their identity’
(Hughes-Hallett, 1938: 102).
Of the seven indigenous languages of Brunei, two are actually varieties of
Malay, spoken by the majority Muslim population. Kedayan is spoken by a
traditionally agricultural group living in the northern part of the country.
Brunei Malay is the most widely used variety of Malay and is spoken by the
puak Brunei, historically and politically the most important group in the
country. Brunei Malay plays a pivotal role in Brunei and the symbolic power of
the variety is associated with the hegemony of the puak Brunei over the other
groups in the country. Brunei Malay functions as the de facto national dialect of
the country. I have suggested elsewhere that a colloquial form of Brunei Malay
 Educational Discourses and Literacy in Brunei Darussalam 209

is used by a majority of the population in all areas of the country, apart from in
isolated inland areas. Use of this variety counterbalances the roles of the two
supraregional and exoglossic languages in the country (English and Bahasa
Melayu). It is an important marker of Bruneian identity (especially since
independence in 1984), of solidarity, prestige and spontaneity (cf. Martin,
1996a: 34).
The speakers of the five other languages have a rural base. Tutong speakers,
a Muslim group of approximately 12,000 people, live mainly in the Tutong
district of the country. Belait speakers, a predominantly Muslim group of less
than 700 individuals, are scattered in the Belait district, in the west of the
country. Dusun speakers, approximately 12,000, are located in the Tutong
district and in the interior of the Belait district. Significant numbers of this
group have become Muslim in the last few decades, although actual numbers
are not available. Bisaya speakers (approximately 600) live in a number of
villages near the Sarawak border with the Brunei-Muara district. Finally, there
are around 1000 Murut speakers, a predominantly Christian group, found in
the Temburong district of the country.
Although estimates for the number of speakers of the five ‘non-Malay’
indigenous languages are provided above, actual figures are unavailable. In
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the four censuses prior to 1960 (1911, 1921, 1931 and 1947), population figures
were provided for each separate indigenous group. However, in 1960 a
considerable number of people from several indigenous groups were classified
as ‘Malay’. Since 1971, all seven groups have been categorised as ‘Malay’ for
census purposes (Government of Brunei, 1987: 18). This situation is clearly in
line with the Nationality Enactment of 1961 (Government of Brunei, 1961: 41a),
which, according to Kershaw (1994a: 180), serves ‘to attract or gently push all
groups towards self-identification as indigenous ‘‘Bruneians’’’ (cf. Kershaw,
1998).
I now turn to a brief discussion of literacy in Brunei in order to contextualise
the multilingual ecology in the country in view of the educational transforma-
tions which have taken place over the last century.

Literacy in Brunei
This section starts with a tale of early literacy and language ecology in 16th
century Brunei. Although there are few existing descriptions of relations which
existed between languages and their speakers, it is nevertheless possible
through the writings of travellers and the analysis of early manuscripts to
comment on early literacies and the ecological relationships between languages.
Collins (1996), for example, has described and analysed, in a persuasive way,
manuscripts from the 16th century which allow us to make tentative claims
about the relationships between languages and their speakers in Brunei at that
time. Such manuscripts are, according to Collins (1996: 140), a ‘virtually
untapped source of information’, and can provide us with a glimpse of the
literacy practices in 16th-century Borneo, and the relative values attached to
languages in use at the time. As Collins notes, Carroll (1986) has suggested that
at the time of the Spanish invasion of Brunei in 1578 there was some literacy in
Arabic, Brunei Malay and Tagalog. That these languages existed in the Brunei
 210 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

court at that time is clear (Collins, 1996). What is of interest in this study is
the relationship which existed between them. Collins’ (1994, 1996) analysis of
the treatment given to two letters from the governor of the Spanish colony of the
Philippines and the leader of the invasion of Brunei, Francisco de Sande, to
the Sultan of Brunei is illuminating. The two letters were handed over to the
commander of the Brunei fleet in the estuary of the Brunei river. One letter,
written in Tagalog (in the Tagalog syllabary in use at the time), was read by the
commander of the galley and was destroyed. The other letter, written in a form
of Brunei Malay (in the Jawi script), was conveyed to the Sultan and read aloud
to him. According to Collins, this demonstrates an unequal status relationship
between Tagalog and Brunei Malay, and the esteem given to Malay literacy in
the Brunei court. Use of Malay defined what it was to be Malay, and a letter
written in another language was not fit to be seen by a Malay ruler. The incident
also provides an early example of the appropriation of Malay by a colonial
power, what Collins (1996: 156) has referred to as the ‘kidnapping [of] Malay
and repackaging it as a colonial commodity’.
It is not possible, due to space constraints, to provide a detailed analysis of
literacy in Brunei over the last few hundred years. Gunn (1997) has provided
some considerable discussion in this area, identifying the origins of a literate
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tradition in Brunei and the role of Islam in this tradition. With the arrival of
Islam came the adoption of Jawi (an Arabic script adapted to the Malay
phonological system). Gunn (1997) then traces the rise of what he calls
‘bureaucratic literacy’, linked to the origins of formal education in Brunei, and
the beginnings of a Brunei media (initially in Malaya and later in Brunei), as
well as the formation of the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Language and
Literature Bureau). Gunn also considers the rise of literacy linked to post-
war education, a topic which is discussed further in the next section.
In contemporary Brunei, as will become clear from the next section, literacy
in Malay and English is highly valued. The other indigenous languages of
Brunei, however, have no literate tradition and there has been no institutional
support in the country to promote these languages. The Dewan Bahasa dan
Pustaka (Language and Literature Bureau) was established to support Malay
literacy, and it published a variety of literature in this language, including
books, anthologies, journals and periodicals. Of the minority indigenous
languages, although a simple Tutong
Malay dictionary was published in 1991
(Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1991), there has been no attempt to publish texts in
the Tutong language. On the contrary, two volumes based on oral texts told in
the Tutong language were translated into Malay and published in that
language (Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1986, 1987). A collection of Dusun
folktales in the Dusun language was published in the USA (Kershaw, 1994b)
after it was suggested to the editor that it would not be possible to publish the
volume in Brunei. One of the minority languages, Murut (Lun Bawang), has
appeared in print, in the form of a Lun Bawang New Testament, Bala Luk Do’
(Bible Society of Singapore and Malaysia, 1982).
In the media, there are both English and Malay newspapers. The daily
newspaper, the Borneo Bulletin, is in English, with its sister publication Media
Permata in Malay. Brunei also has access to the daily Malaysian newspapers,
Berita Harian and Utusan Melayu, New Straits Times and The Star, and these are
 Educational Discourses and Literacy in Brunei Darussalam 211

popular and are, arguably, the most important sources of reading materials for
the adult population in Brunei.
I now turn to a discussion of probably the most important ‘sponsor’ of
literacy in Brunei over the last century, ‘education’. The following section on
education and language, and their associated discourses demonstrates the
tensions between, on the one hand, official government monolingual ‘Malay’
rhetoric and, on the other, the macro-political discourses linked to globalisa-
tion, technology and the importance of English. In relation to the former, are
the processes of assimilation and fragmentation, and the neglect of the
minority languages of Brunei. With reference to the latter are the sociopolitical
dynamics of trying to value two languages simultaneously and the introduc-
tion of the Bilingual System of Education.

A Historical Contextualisation of Language and Education

in Brunei
Education in Brunei can be described in three main phases during the last
one hundred years. These are the Residency Period (1906
1959), the period
between the ending of the British Residency Period and Independence
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(1959
1984) and the post-Independence period (1985
). It is clearly important

to highlight the early education policies, as these have had a major effect on
how education in Brunei has evolved and the broader sociopolitical educa-
tional transformations in Brunei, including the importance attached to literacy
in some, but not other languages.

The Residency Period (1906 1959)
Following the Protectorate Agreement of 1888 between Brunei and Britain, a
British ‘Resident’, M.S.H. McArthur, was appointed in Brunei. This marked
the beginning of a 53-year Residency Period during which time educational
provision for young Bruneians increased. Before this time instruction for boys
in simple Arabic literacy and Koranic recitation was available in the houses of
village headmen or in the local mosque. In 1912, the first Malay vernacular
school opened, and by 1929 there were four Malay schools. In 1938, school
attendance became compulsory for all boys between the ages of 7 and 14 living
within a two-mile radius of a school where the language of instruction was
their own language. It was also noted at the time that it was ‘impracticable’ to
provide education in the other languages of Brunei, and that it was ‘inevitable
that, linguistically at any rate, the other races must be assimilated to Malay’
(Annual Report for the State of Brunei for the Year 1938, 1939: 33
34). In the
following years, there was subtle shift in the classification of the languages of
the indigenous groups. By classifying them as Malay ‘dialects’ there was no
real need to plan for them and, as noted above, these languages remain
unwritten.
By the middle of the 20th century, there was a growing need for an English-
educated workforce. This was not only required by the rapidly developing oil
industry but also by the civil service. The first government English primary
school was established in 1951, and two years later the first secondary school
 212 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

class was opened. Jones (1995: 101) notes that the introduction of English at the
Primary Four level in 1951 determined for future generations at what stage in
the country’s schooling the teaching of English would begin. Jones also
describes the introduction of English-medium education as ‘a hazardous
venture’ given the shortage of trained staff.
A number of concerns about Brunei’s first venture into English education
were expressed around that time. The British Resident in Brunei in 1951,
J.C.H. Barcroft, enquired what ‘repercussions [English medium schools] would
have in respect of the languages and cultures of the two main racial groups in
Brunei, i.e. the indigenous races and the Chinese’ (Annual Report for the State of
Brunei for the Year 1951, 1952: 33). In addition, he was of the opinion that the
‘great majority’ of parents preferred their children to acquire their ‘first and
early education’ in their mother tongue in vernacular schools, acquiring English
as a second language (Annual Report for the State of Brunei for the Year 1951, 1952:
33
4). Such concerns have continued to be aired by others at different stages in
the evolution of Brunei’s education system (cf. Gunn, 1997).
By the end of the Residency Period, there had been a large increase in the
number of schools and in the school population, as well as the beginnings of
an educational infrastructure laid down, but there was no real centralised or
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unifying education policy. Ahmad’s (1992: 7) assertion that the period of

British administration fostered separatism and made no progress in the
formulation of a national education policy aimed at providing a unifying
emblem for the population of Brunei is therefore well founded.

The post-residency pre-independence period (1959 1984)

Although the period between the end of the British Residency and the
Independence of Brunei saw tremendous developments in certain aspects of
education in the state, it is ironic that despite two important commissioned
reports, there was actually little change in education policy during this 25-year
period. The period began in 1959 with the official recognition of Malay (Bahasa
Melayu) as the official language of the country. Article 82 (1) of the Constitution
further stipulated that English might be used alongside Malay for a further
period of five years for all official purposes and thereafter until dictated by
written law (Government of Brunei, 1961).
Steps were taken to establish a National Education Policy following the
publication of two education reports (Aminuddin Baki-Paul Chang Report,
1959; Government of Brunei, 1972). However, the major recommendation in
these reports, to make Malay the main medium of instruction, was not
implemented. One reason for this, suggested by Jones (1995), was the
deteriorating political and diplomatic relations between Brunei and Malaysia
in 1974. At that time, any attempt to make Malay the medium of instruction in
schools would have required a major input in corpus planning from Malaysia.
It is also likely that, politically, Brunei was not ready to take the step of a
changeover from a dual system of separate Malay and English-medium
education to a single system using Malay. As a small country with few
institutions of higher learning it was, and still is to some extent, necessary to
send considerable numbers of students overseas for training in various fields.
 Educational Discourses and Literacy in Brunei Darussalam 213

Clearly, then, there were also pragmatic reasons for maintaining two separate
systems.
In the quarter century between the ending of the Residency Period and the
Independence of Brunei, there was a continual expansion in the number of
schools in the country, but there was no major change in direction of education
policy. The pattern had become established in which the highest achieving
students were siphoned off for English-medium secondary education. Less
academically gifted students, on the other hand, continued in Malay-medium
secondary schools, the first of which had been established in 1966. The dual
system of separate streams of education strengthened ‘the belief amongst
Bruneians that English was a language with higher academic and social status
than Malay’ (Cane, 1993: 8; see also Ożóg, 1996).

The bilingual system of education or Dwibahasa (1985)

In January 1985, one year after Brunei’s independence, the Sistem Pendidikan
Dwibahasa or Bilingual System of Education was implemented, replacing the
old system of division into either English- or Malay-medium education. The
aims of the new system (referred to throughout this study as Dwibahasa)
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closely resembled the aims and recommendations of both the 1959 and the
1972 reports. The major difference was the emphasis on ‘a single system of
education, to be known as the Education System of Negara Brunei Darussa-
lam, which will no longer comprise different mediums of instruction’
(Government of Brunei, 1985: 1). The concept of a bilingual system of
education was ‘a means of ensuring the sovereignty of the Malay Language,
while at the same time recognising the importance of the English Language’,
with the declared aim that ‘a high degree of proficiency in both languages
should be achieved’ (Government of Brunei, 1985: 2).
The 1985 policy document makes a clear statement about the relative
positions of Malay and English in the hierarchy of languages in Brunei and
this has been reiterated in subsequent documents. However, the actual
allocation of time to the two languages in the classroom, especially in the
secondary classroom, clearly legitimised English as the major language of
instruction. Dwibahasa was introduced in stages starting in 1985. In the new
system, the language of instruction in the lower primary school (Primary I
III)
was Malay, with the exception of English language taught as a subject.
However, from Primary IV onwards, two languages were used as languages of
instruction: Malay for ‘subjects which are not closely related to the majority of
discipline studies at the higher levels of education overseas’ and English for
‘subjects which are heavily dependent on the English language’ (English,
Geography, Mathematics and Science) (Government of Brunei, 1985: 2). At the
end of Primary VI, all pupils took the Primary Education Examination in four
subjects: English Language, Bahasa Melayu, Mathematics and General Paper.
Pupils achieving ‘A’ grades in all subjects could expect to be selected for the
more prestigious schools.
Much of the discourse in the 1985 document about the Dwibahasa system
(Government of Brunei 1985), and subsequent official documents from the
Ministry of Education, emphasised the ‘dominance’ of the Malay language.
 214 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

Despite the rhetorical correctness, the system clearly legitimised English as the
dominant language. One stated reason for recognising the importance of
English was ‘based on an assumption of its importance for academic study,
and thus its ability to facilitate the entry of students from Brunei Darussalam
to institutions of higher education overseas where the medium of instruction is
English’ (Government of Brunei, 1985: 2). There was a further note stating this
would be subject to review ‘should Brunei Darussalam itself be able, in the
future, to provide its own facilities for higher education’. Less than a year after
this report was published, the Universiti Brunei Darussalam was established as
Brunei’s first university, but there has been no change in policy and English
continues to dominate.
In the period since the implementation of the Dwibahasa system, there has
been considerable debate in Brunei about its efficacy. Proponents of a
monolingual system of education with Malay as the language of instruction
(cf. Mohammad Jamil, 1992) see the Dwibahasa system as an anomaly: while
the government continues to emphasise the Melayu Islam Beraja (Malay Islamic
Monarchy) concept, the Malay language has to share the stage with English.
Indeed, in the post-primary phase of education, Malay is very much pushed
out into the wings. Braighlinn (1992: 21) refers to the ‘extraordinary paradox’
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in the way that the Dwibahasa system has thwarted the ‘development of the
Malay language as a medium of literary expression and analytical thought’.
He goes on to argue that ‘the majority of non-middle class youth receive
virtually no education at all, because the medium of instruction [English]
cannot be understood’. According to Braighlinn (1992: 21), the Dwibahasa
system provided ‘an illusion of equality’ compared to the former situation in
which there were separate streams of education.
Having considered the educational discourses in Brunei, in the final part of
this paper I turn to actual educational practice, focusing on the how teachers
and students ‘implement’ the policy at the level of the classroom. The aim here
is to show how the choice of a bilingual system of education (Dwibahasa) is
‘translated’ into actual classroom practice by the teachers and students.

Literacy Practices in Brunei Primary Classrooms

The discussion of the major educational transformations in Brunei above
ranges from the beginning of the Residency Period in 1906 to the current time,
exactly one century further on. The evolution of the educational language
policy in Brunei can be seen as a struggle between the ‘sovereignty’ of Malay,
the rights of the speakers of the smaller indigenous languages and the global
dominance of English. It will be apparent from the discussion above that there
is a certain tension inherent in the Dwibahasa system, a system which attempts
to construct two parallel, but clearly demarcated, monolingual orders. The
Dwibahasa policy is based on the principle of bilingualism through mono-
lingualism (Swain, 1983: 41), that is, the use of separate languages for different
subjects, as well as the use of monolingual textbooks in the classrooms. A
corollary of this is the institutional pressure on classroom participants to
conform to the fiction of two parallel monolingual orders. The discussion
below provides examples of how classroom participants actually manage this
 Educational Discourses and Literacy in Brunei Darussalam 215

through a use of two languages. The particular focus of the section is

classroom literacies. Several extracts, taken from a range of primary level
classrooms, are discussed.
The first two extracts are taken from history lessons in two primary
classrooms in 1994. At that stage in Brunei’s Dwibahasa system, the language of
instruction was English. Two years later, the medium of instruction for history
was changed to Malay. In Extract 1, the teacher and students are focusing on a
particular section of the history textbook. The section is reproduced below:
In the early period of his rule, Brunei was still a dependency of
Majapahit. At that time, Majapahit was a strong kingdom. Many
countries paid tribute to the kingdom. Before Sultan Muhammad Shah
embraced Islam, Brunei also paid tribute to Majapahit. (Curriculum
Development Department, 1992: 12, original emphasis)

Extract 1: Primary 5 (History)

Ss: [Reading from textbook] ‘In the early period of his rule, Brunei was still
a dependency of
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T: dependency . . . apa itu? Bwhat’s that?

Ss: [No response]
T: Write in your books . . . dependency ialah
jajahanB is dependency  . . . Brunei was still under the jajahan
Bdependency of . . .
Ss: [Reading from textbook] ‘of Majapahit. Many countries paid tribute . . .’
T: Now what is tribute?
Ss: [No response]
T: Find the word ‘tribute’ . . . put there penghormatan B tribute  . . .
OK . . . ‘Before
Ss: Before Sultan Muhammad Shah embraced Islam
T: embrace.. apa maksud?Bwhat’s the meaning? embrace. it means
memeluk agama Islam Bembracing the Islamic religion
(Source: Jainap, 1994, cited in Martin, 1996b: 136
137)
(Transcription conventions are provided at the end of the paper.)

In this extract, the teacher is providing glosses for three difficult words in the
text, ‘dependency’, ‘tribute’ and ‘embraced’. The first two of these words in
the text are highlighted, and English ‘meanings’ are provided at the end of the
chapter. However, the teacher chooses not to refer students to the meanings
provided on page 20 of the textbook but instead to unpack the meanings of the
words by providing the Malay equivalents. In addition, the teacher specifically
instructs the students to write the Malay equivalents in their books.
Another example is provided in Extract 2 below, also a history lesson, but
this time at Primary 4 level. In this extract, as is usual in history lessons, the
students are reading aloud from the text book and the teacher is annotating as
the reading progresses.
 216 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

Extract 2: Primary 4 (History)

Ss: [Reading from the textbook] ‘The King of Brunei sent three envoys to
China in 977AD. These Brunei envoys were Moslims. They brought a
letter and gifts to the Emperor of China. The gifts were camphor,
tortoise-shell, sandalwood and iv’
T: ‘ivory’
Ss: ‘ivory. They went to China by sailing ships.’
T: Now sakarang ani.. kalau kitani kan macam Bnow.. if we for
example for example. macam nageri kitani.. tau kamu Blike our
country.. do you know  diplomat.. ah.. envoy.. atu maksudnya Bthat’s
the meaning of it .. diplomat. Now the King of Brunei manghantar
berapa urang Bsent several men .. envoy. how many envoy?
Ss: Three
T: Three. envoy atu macam diplomat bah B an envoy is like a diplomat 
OK. ia manghantar urang ani Bhe sent these men  ia mambawa letter
and gifts B he brought .. ah.. barang Bthings . . . ah mambagi
barang kapada Raja Cina Bhe gave things to the King of China. Raja
Cina. macam kitani bah.. kalau pergi ka rumah urang. kita selalu
mambawa barang kan buah tangan Blike us.. if we go to someone’s
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house we always bring things or gifts  sama jua macam diurang ani Bit
was the same with these people they brought camphor . . . tortoise-
shell. tau Bdo you know  tortoise-shell?
Ss: Yes
T: Apa? Bwhat kulit . . . kulit kura kura ah B tortoise-shell  sandal
wood and ivory. ivory ialah gading gajah Bis ivory . buah tangan
macam ani dibawanya ka mana? Bwhere were these gifts brought?
. . . Malaysia?
Ss: Bukan B no
T: Ke mana? B to where?  ka Thailand Bto Thailand 
S: Ka Cina B to China 
T: ‘They went to China by sailing ships.’ Now . . . read
(Source: Jainap, 1994, cited in Martin, 1996b: 135
136)

There are several interesting features in Extract 2. The whole extract shows
how the teacher, with some help from the students, unpacks the meaning of
the written (English) word, using Malay. But in this classroom, rather than
formal Bahasa Melayu being used, the variety used is a colloquial form of
Brunei Malay. The variety of Malay used here is different from than in Extract
1. The particular features include the use of Brunei Malay pronouns (‘kitani’,
‘us’, ‘we’; and ‘diurang’, ‘they’, ‘them’).
What do these two extracts tell us about the way teachers and students
interact with monolingual English text in the classroom? Clearly, the English
ability of the majority of the classroom participants is not sufficient to allow
the learning/teaching and comprehension of the text in English. Additionally,
the use of two separate and compartmentalised monolingual orders in the
classroom is a myth. Teachers, and learners, seem to understand the pragmatic
usefulness of switching to a language which the majority of the participants
understand in order to unpack the text and to ensure that some learning takes
 Educational Discourses and Literacy in Brunei Darussalam 217

place. However, there is a lingering feeling that, in resorting to or encouraging

the use of the first language, the teachers are doing something wrong. There is
a negative value associated with ‘lapses’ into the first language which, as
Auerbach (1993: 14) notes, are seen as ‘aberrations, a cause for guilt’. This
negative value has its ideological roots in what Phillipson (1992) has referred
to as the ‘monolingual fallacy’.
Two more examples are provided below. Extracts 3 and 4 are from two
different primary four classrooms in different regions of Brunei. In both cases
the teachers are talking around a piece of text from the Primary 4 science
textbook, and attempting to unlock the meanings in the text. The text is
reproduced below:
Vitamins and minerals also protect us from certain diseases. They
contain much fibres. This roughage helps us to pass out the unwanted
food waste from our body. Eating a lot of these foods helps our bowels to
open and prevent constipation. [sic] (Ministry of Education, Brunei
Darussalam, n.d., Primary Science for Brunei Darussalam. Darjah 4, pp. 67)
The vocabulary load of this text is very high, especially when it is considered
that the students interacting with the text have only been in English-medium
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education for a few months. One study which focuses on the readability of
English-medium curriculum texts in Brunei concludes that they were ‘too
difficult and generally insufficiently interesting for whom they were designed’
(Burns & Charleston, 1997: 290). This, then, needs to be taken into account in
discussing how teachers and learners actually negotiate the content of
the texts.
Extracts 3 and 4 below show how the teachers struggle to get across the
meaning of the text to their pupils. The word ‘struggle’ is chosen carefully.
Both teachers, in discussing their teaching strategy after the lesson, were of the
opinion that their annotation and translation of the key concepts and lexical
items in the text was the only way of getting the message across to the pupils.
In Extract 3 from a rural school, the teacher is reading the text and
annotating and translating into Malay as he goes along. After the lesson, this
teacher said he could not have asked the pupils to read the text on account of
its difficulty. He felt it was better that the reading was managed by himself.
After reading a section of the text, ‘helps us to pass out unwanted food’, the
teacher begins a long exposition on the meaning of ‘unwanted food’. This
leads the teacher on to the term ‘constipation’. Despite the long teacher
exposition on the subject of ‘constipation’, the pupils were not really given the
chance to show whether they understood the meaning of the term. Of course,
there could be several reasons for this, including the monologic style of the
teacher, the nature of the topic, as well as problems with language.

Extract 3 (Primary 4, Science)

T: ‘They contain much fibres’. ah. which ‘helps us to pass out the
unwanted food’. tahu kamu. B do you know tahu B do you know
unwanted food ani.B this kalau dimakan Bif eaten. ada makan
yang inda baguna kan. B there are foods which are not really useful
 218 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

ah. kan jadi baria atu bah. B will become faeces menyenangkan
kamu baria. B will help you to defecate makan. Bfood supaya
kamu senang baria. Bso that it is easy for you todefecate [T LAUGHS]
you have to know that ah. makanan macam ani penting. Bfood such as
this is important ah. faham tu. Bdo you understandada orang
baria keluar darah. Bthere are people who bleed when they defecate
tahu. ah.. B do you know tahi itu makan adalah makanan yang inda
baik. Bfaeces is the food which is not used ah. yang inda baik atu.
Bwhich is not good dibuang Bit is thrown out . yang baik untuk
badan.B the good food is for the body faham tu.. baik.. Bdo you
understand..good di bawah ani Bat the bottom (of the book)  ada
Byou will find (the word) constipation . . . constipation. ertinya. Bit
means bila kamu jarang baria . . . Bwhen you seldom defecate
constipation. lambat baria. B it takes a long time to defecate tahinya
keras dan susah mahu keluar . . . B the faeces is hard and it is difficult to
defecate baik. B good OK. di bawah lagi ada gambar Bat the
bottom there are pictures of vitamin. vitamin A. B. nampak kamu itu.
Bcan you see them penting kamu tahu. B it is important that
you should know apa makanan yang mengandungi Bwhat foods
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contain vitamin A. vitamin B. vitamin C. ah

(Martin, 1996b)

In Extract 4, from an urban school, the teacher initially involves the pupils in
reading aloud the text and she helps them when they stumble over
problematic lexical items, such as ‘bowels’ and constipation’. The teacher
then begins a long exposition of the term ‘constipation’, switching between the
language of the text, English, and standard Malay and colloquial Brunei
Malay. At the end of her exposition, the teacher involves the pupils, inviting
them to complete her response, in chorus.

Extract 4 (Primary 4, Science)

Ps: [Reading from the textbook] ‘Eating a lot of these foods helps our bow.’
T: bowels
Ps: ‘bowels to open and prevent constip.’
T: constipation. now when we eat too much . . . eh . . . no . . . when we eat
these foods . . . these vegetables . . . OK kalau kitani makan Bif we
eat  vegetables . . . are you all listening . . . I don’t think you are
listening . . . I can stop you know . . . when we eat these foods . . .
OK . . . when we eat these foods . . . a lot . . . kitani makan tu ah Bwe
eat these  . . . ah . . . do you know what it means? kalau kitani makan
atu banyak banyak sanang kitani kan Bif we eat a great amount of these
it is easy for us to  . . . you know . . . the word . . . kan baria bah . . .
sanang bah B to defecate . . . easily  because . . . apa yang inda baik
atu . . . yang macam Bwhat isn’t good . . . such as  . . . what you
eat . . . macam ada yang unwanted atu . . . yang inda baguna . . .
barang yang inda baguna di badan kitani lakas keluar Bsuch as
 Educational Discourses and Literacy in Brunei Darussalam 219

that which is unwanted . . . which is no use . . . which is no use to our bodies

is quickly expelled  . . . you know why . . . because kitani makan
ani . . . anu ani menolong Bwe eat this and such and such a thing to
help  that thing . . . ah faeces keluar dengan cepat . . . inda macam
urang kadang kadang jarang baria . . . tau kamu urang yang jarang
pergi ka toilet tu kan B faeces be expelled from the body quickly . . . not like
people who sometimes never defecate . . . you know what I mean about people
who rarely go to the toilet . . . OK . . . artinya makan atu masih lakat
dalam badan . . . yang inda baik atu masih lagi tahan tahan Bthat
means that the food is kept in the body . . . that which isn’t good is still kept
in  . . . OK . . . faham kamu tu Bdo you understand that  lagi pun
menolong kitani inda sakit Bit also helps to prevent us from getting
sick 
Ps: parut Bstomach 
T: now . . . constipation . . . maksudnya sakit parut . . . B means stomach-
ache now we stop
(Jainap, 1994)

The linguistic resources used by the two teachers in the two extracts above are
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remarkably similar. This is not surprising as the topic of the text under
discussion is the same. What is significant, however, is the fact that both
teachers make use of a similar strategy of annotating key terms and concepts,
switching between English (the language of the text), standard Malay and
colloquial Brunei Malay, in order to attempt to get their message across, and to
provide contexts for the pupils to understand the term ‘constipation’.
Although the teachers invest a relatively long period of time explaining the
concept of ‘constipation’, it is not clear whether the pupils have actually
understood its meaning. Significantly, the standard Malay term for ‘constipa-
tion’ (‘sembelit’) was not provided by either teacher. This is a term that would
not be in the pupils’ vocabulary. Indeed, one of the teachers later confided that
he was not aware of the term. This suggests that the main aim of using Malay
is to annotate key terms and concepts from the textbook, and not necessarily to
provide the pupils with bilingual knowledge of academic terms.
The four examples above show how communication around text occurs in
more than one language, that is, English and two varieties of Malay. Such
practices are a widespread feature of primary level classrooms in Brunei.
Although there is a considerable literature on talking around texts in
classrooms in monolingual settings (see, for example, Mercer, 1995) and the
teacher as mediator in such settings (Luke et al., 1989), there is a paucity of
research on classrooms in multilingual contexts. It is not surprising, then, that
bilingual teacher education is rarely informed by such practices. The language
practices described above clearly show that when it comes to implementing
language policy inside the classroom, it is the teachers (on their own and in
collaboration with pupils) who are the gatekeepers, not the language planners
and policymakers. It is therefore essential that teachers are equipped with the
necessary skills and knowledge of the sociolinguistic and multilingual
contexts in which they live and work.
 220 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

What, then, do the bilingual practices discussed above tell us about the way
that classroom participants connect or disconnect with the policy set in place, a
policy which is based on the principle of bilingualism through monolingual-
ism? As the extracts show, the teachers and students are contesting the policy
in their use of bilingual strategies, where the policy dictates separate
monolingual orders. In other words, the micro discourses of the classroom
are competing against the macro-political discourses which have been
discussed elsewhere in this study.
Studies in other contexts where there has been competition between a
colonial language and indigenous languages show a similar struggle for
linguistic resources in the classroom, and similar tensions between policy and
practice. For example, in the African context, Brock-Utne (2005), Bunyi (2005)
and Probyn (2005) have discussed the deviations in the policy of using English
only in the classroom. Resonances and differences in the tensions between
policy and practice in Africa (in this case Botswana) and Brunei are also noted
in a recent comparative study of how lessons are accomplished in the two
countries (Arthur & Martin, 2006).
In other parts of the world, language in education policy and practice has
rarely been out of the news. For example, in one of Brunei’s close neighbours,
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Malaysia, there has been a recent change in policy. Since 2003 the medium of
instruction for mathematics and science changed from Malay to English. This
switch has introduced new tensions into language policy and practice in
Malaysian schools. A recent editorial in a major Malaysian newspaper, for
example, accuses teachers who switch into Malay in order to accomplish
teaching of being ‘guilty of sabotaging the [language] policy . . . and short-
changing their students’ (Martin, 2005: 76). Within such a statement, I would
suggest, lurks an ideological viewpoint that the classroom can be disconnected
from the sociopolitical context in which it exists, and the fact that knowledge is
best taught and learned monolingually (cf. Phillipson, 1992).
And yet, returning to the African context, with specific reference to Namibia,
the important point has been made that if educational goals in that country are
to be met, the classroom must be language-friendly, and first language literacy
must be encouraged. Of course, the concept of ‘first language’ is not always as
straightforward as it might seem. Harlech-Jones is of the opinion that switching
between languages in the classroom should ‘take place freely’, and that what is
important is ‘not compliance with a language agenda’ but ‘maximization of
learning’ (Harlech-Jones, 1995: 202). In Brunei, and in other contexts, where
teachers and learners share a stronger language, such as Malay, it is
straightforwardly obvious that a language other than English is available to
them to bring to bear on a given problem or text. They are also well aware that it
is completely artificial to totally exclude their stronger language and some could
conceivably even come to resent the exclusive use of English as a barrier to their
gaining certain kinds of knowledge.
In the Brunei context, some fine-tuning has been carried out to educational
policy since the establishment of the bilingual policy. Certainly, the educa-
tional authorities have begun to take into account what is happening at the
classroom level but, at the same time, they have reaffirmed the bilingual
 Educational Discourses and Literacy in Brunei Darussalam 221

policy. It has been mooted that one solution to the unequal access to
knowledge in Brunei schools is that, contrary to the situation in Malaysia,
the cognitively demanding subjects such as mathematics and science should
be taught in the pupils’ stronger language, Malay, and cognitively less
demanding subjects be taught in English (Baetens Beardsmore, 1996); but to
date, this has not been taken forward.

Summary
Brunei’s investment in literacy in the contemporary period is contingent on
the historical processes over the preceding centuries. On the one hand, literacy
in Malay and Jawi is valued in line with the state ideology of Melayu Islam
Beraja (Malay Islamic Monarchy). At the same time, as Brunei took its place in
the modern world following its independence from Britain in 1984, it sought to
invest heavily in English through the introduction of a bilingual system of
education. This system, as noted earlier, clearly legitimises English as the
major language of instruction. The other indigenous languages of Brunei,
conveniently categorised as dialects of Malay, have been neglected, and young
speakers of these languages have not been able to have their early literacy
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experiences through their own languages.

Although the majority of Bruneians learn a form of colloquial Brunei Malay
as their first language, educational success is dependent on literacy in
standard formal Malay and on English, and there is unequal access to these
resources among the population. As noted earlier, Braighlinn (1992) has
argued that the majority of middle-class students in Brunei do not receive any
education as they are unable to understand the language of instruction.
However, literacy practices in classrooms in Brunei show that teachers and
students evolve their own strategies to ensure that some learning does indeed
take place. Brief extracts from several classrooms in the fourth section of this
paper demonstrate some of these practices. Essentially, what teachers and
students are doing is competing against the macro-political discourses through
their own classroom micro-discourses.

Transcription conventions
Conventional punctuation has not been used. Full stops are used to indicate
pauses, and question marks to indicate questions.

T: Teacher
S: Student
Ss: Students
Plain font English
Bold font Malay
BItalics BTranslations into English
[] Commentary on what is happening in the classroom
‘Ali is . . .’ Indicates reading from the textbook or other resource
 222 The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Peter Martin, University of East
London, London, E15 4LZ, UK.

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