In the Malaysian education system, primary schools are divided into three different tracks: national primary schools, Chinese-language primary schools, and Tamil-language primary schools.
因此，在馬來西亞教育體制下，小學可被分成三種源流：國民小學（簡稱「國小」）、華文小學（簡稱「華小」），和淡米爾小學（簡稱「淡小」）。