The Bidayuh Language Yesterday, Today and ... - SIL International

(1917–1941) also held this attitude. He recommended a vernacular curriculum in the native schools to
help the pupils “take their place in the structure of their own community.”
Actually, all three White Rajahs had a laissez-faire policy towards the schools in Sarawak. The non-
Muslim bumiputera’s education was left entirely to Christian missionaries. However, as both Anglican
and Catholic mission schools were in town areas, very few non-Muslim bumiputera could afford to attend
schools. Thus non-Muslim bumiputera pupils did not benefit much from such educational facilities.
The first Bidayuh pupils to receive education were in Quop, where a vernacular school was
established by Walter (sic) Chalmers in 1858. According to his record there were twenty “regular
learners” including a few girls. 4 Chalmers also toured the upper Sarawak River area, where he found a
group of Bidayuh (the Bianah) very receptive to his hymns.
In 1916, the Anglican mission established a school at Ta’ee, a Bidayuh village near Serian. In 1933,
the Seventh Day Adventist mission built a school at the foot of Stabun mountain, near Serian, to provide
academic and agricultural training for the Serian Bidayuhs. In the same year, 1933, the Roman Catholics
built a school, a small hut, in Serian, where a number of Bidayuhs came to learn how to read and write.
Christianity was brought to Singai, a Bidayuh village near Bau, in 1885 by Rev. Fr. Felix
Westerwoudt, but no formal education was established at that time. It was only in 1936 that St. Michael’s
school at Sudoh, Singai, was built. Thus, towards the closing years of the Brooke regime, there was not
even one Government-supported school built for the Bidayuh. All in all, at that time (1941) in Sarawak,
there were 11 Anglican mission schools, 27 Roman Catholic schools, 3 Seventh Day Adventist schools, 33
Government-supported Malay schools, 144 Chinese schools and 1 Iban school.
During the Japanese occupation (1942–1945), most of the schools in Sarawak were closed. However,
some Sarawakians were taught Japanese in those schools that remained open.
2.4.2 During British colonial rule (1946–1963)
When Malcolm MacDonald, the then British Governor-General, Lloyd Thomas, District Officer for Bau
and the Datu Bandar paid an official visit to Singai in 1949, the Bisingai’s Paramount chief, Orang Kaya
Babai Jorai, told the British Governor-General in front of Lloyd Thomas and the Datu Bandar that the
Brookes had educated the Malays, but had provided no schools for the Bidayuhs. He and his people
hoped that the British colonial administration would also educate the Dayaks (MacDonald 1956).
Accordingly, the British colonial government built many primary schools in rural areas, under the
jurisdiction of the district councils. A number of secondary schools were also built by the government
under the Colombo Plan, 5 for example, Dragon School (now called Kolej Tun Abdul Razak), at the 24th
4 Perhaps it is not surprising that the first Bidayuh to pass the Junior Cambridge examination, in the 1930s, was a
girl from Quop, Jessica Simigaat, a student of St. Mary's School, Kuching (Osman 1990). Jessica went on to
become one of the first batch of three Bidayuh teachers in the school at Quop.
5 The Colombo Plan is an international economic organization that came into force in 1951, whereby the richer
countries of the British Commonwealth helped the poorer countries with their educational and other needs. Under
this plan, many overseas scholarships were awarded to promising students (quite a number later went on to high
office after their countries’ independence) and many schools were built throughout the British Empire.
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