HISTORY OF INSTITUITION AND TRADE IN MALAYSIA

(by Farhat Haniff)

Instituition
Malaysia has been involved in the foreign upbringing centuries ago by the Portugese and the Dutch, but less than ten decades ago, the country was ruled by the British who settled down and finalised the country's rule of right, foreign policies and introducing a new culture to Malaysia (which was called Malaya pre-independent)
The occupation of the British brought in families from overseas thus creating a foreign atmosphere in the country. The British also wanted the English language to be largely spoken by the public apart from Malay, Chinese and Tamil for easy sense of communication between the dominant groups of the country and the occupants. Thus they have built up schools and institutions to cater their children and achieve the same sense of English education for the locals.
Kuala Terengganu Grammar School, Alice Smith School, to name a few, are one of the oldest english speaking school with an english cirriculum dated pre-independent. These were set up either privately or by government to freely educate expats and locals with, what I think, a much better approach to learning than what has been established.

Malaysia is widely known in Britain as it is one of their Commenwealth countries. This means that education and institutions in Malaysia can be recognised at the homeland and abroad. This also means that Malaysians (either Malay, Chinese and Indian) will be able to travel overseas and exchange cultures with the rest of the world. This will recognise Malaysia on the map and allow the local Malaysian tradition to be shared. Because of this, Local Malaysian institutions, such as Limkokwing, can be established in other countries apart from the home country to exchange information between them, and this allows other international institutions to be built up in Malaysia creating a sense of unity due to Institutions and education.

Trade
During colonialisation of Malaysia (called Malaya pre-independant), the peninsular became a pitstop for traders because of its geographical location, the end peak of mainland Asia, with the straits surrounding the peninsular. This broght traders from India, the Arab countries and China.
As the traders exchange goods in Malaya, an exchage of culture is signified, thus Malaysian culture becomes widely known to many nations. Malaysia is a source of timber, rubber and tin, creating a wealth in natural resources. These were exported to Mainland China, UK, and India to name a few.
In Germany, their main source of timber is from Malaysia, having a relationship with the country to establish deals of trade. Rubber plantation helps car industries in Europe, such as Continental Tires UK, to import raw rubber materials to make wheels in order to drive their nation easily.

As for Malaysia, we exchange for goods such as Machineries from Germany (Siemens) to improve quality of craftsmanship domesticly and internationally thus improve to make better products at lower costs for international traders.

RESOURCE:
Theory Of Knowlege (TOK) International Baccalaureatte Text Book of World Colonialisation, Nelson Thorne IB Geography.