My wife and I are both non-Chinese educated professionals. My son is 4 years old and we will have to register him for primary school soon. We have a dilemma of whether to send him to a Chinese school, where he will really struggle for the first few years and we won't be able to fully help him, or send him to a non-Chinese school instead.

My son has not shown any interest in picking up Mandarin, and there's not really anyone around who speaks it with him. He does learn some from his kindergarten but I don't think it will be sufficient for him to survive a Chinese primary school.

We're not sure if there are any non-Chinese primary schools in Penang which are good. By good I mean dedicated teachers, good reputation (no big disciplinary problems with students) and good academic and extra curricular achievements.

I wanna ask for advice from all the parents out there for their opinions on these 2 questions:
1. Should I enroll my son into a Chinese primary school?
2. Which are the good non-Chinese primary schools in Penang?

Many thanks in advance.

Yup Banana - yellow on the outside but white on the inside.
We were in your shoes long time ago. Today looking back I would say we make a wise decision. You should not underestimate your child capability of learning another language & the importance of China's influence in the global economy.
You can start by sent your kid to Peng Hwa Kindergarden. Have additional mandarin tuition and later buy a good English-Chinese electronic dictionary with good audio pronunciation and touch input.
BTW my kid got straight 'A's in UPSR & PMR.

Or you can consider non-Chinese primary schools like Tanby, St Christopher or Sri Inai.

What is the starting age for primary school now?

Yea, me too. I'm dillemma for quite some time until i decided that i will send my daugther to a chinese primary school.

Now my 2nd dillemma is which chinese primary school is good in Penang ?

I am considering Shang Wu vs. Han Chiang chinese primary school.
Heard both schools is good.

Not too sure, can anyone please advice?