Actress Sarah Lian speaks out against “racist” exam question in Petaling Jaya school

Photo: Sarah Lian / Facebook
Photo: Sarah Lian / Facebook

Typically known for her hosting and acting work on TV (as well as being FHM Malaysia’s most wanted woman in 2008) Sarah Lian took to social media to bring up an important issue: ethnic stereotypes being taught to children.

According to Lian, her friend’s daughter — a student at Sekolah Kebangsaaan Taman Megah — sat for a paper that posed a pretty questionable question, in which she had to match people’s names with various places of worship.

A pretty straightforward question really — but quite archaic, like Lian says. This would fly in the ’00s or the years before that, but the concept of pigeonholing ethnicity with their assumed religion is kinda passé in 2017. A person named Steve could be Muslim too, while someone by the name of Hock Lee is more than welcome at any church.

But perhaps what Lian is most furious about is the fact that such a stereotypical exercise is being inculcated in the minds of young ‘uns.

To be fair to the educators though, it’s not as if they could easily remove the question or marked the young girl’s answers as correct — it’s all part of a syllabus. Like someone pointed out in the comments, it probably was less of an intentional pursuit of bigotry and more of teaching kids about making connections in regards to identity.

Lian maintains that it shouldn’t have been a question posed to kids in the first place:



Reader Interactions

Leave A Reply


BECOME A COCO+ MEMBER

Support local news and join a community of like-minded
“Coconauts” across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

Join Now
Coconuts TV
Our latest and greatest original videos
Subscribe on