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Pakatan Harapan should not reverse his election promise to officially recognize the UEC.
COMMENTARY
By Kua Kia Soong
Does the recognition of the CEU by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) Government not lead you to wonder how for example, the electoral manifesto of the PH was drafted and how was it approved by the PH leaders? It would be expected that the person whom they eventually appointed Minister of Education would be part of the committee to study the UEC before approving it.
Well, from the backtracking we've seen since GE14 and the statements of the PH leaders, especially the new Minister of Education, one would think that the supposedly democratic process by which the manifesto was written and finally approved does not represent much. Was the PH election manifesto only a piece of paper to tear after the elections, "just a guide, not a bible" as Dr. Mahathir Mohamad just said. ?
It is clear that PH won the vast majority of Chinese. votes during the GE14 mainly because the manifesto of the PH and the leaders of PH have promised to recognize the UEC, the certificate of graduation from the Chinese Independent Secondary Schools of Malaysia (MICSS) which has been slandered by Umno since 1975.
Minister Maszlee Malik insisted that any decision of the government to formally recognize the EUC will only be taken "after a comprehensive and holistic study on the issue is completed. .. if the formal recognition of the UEC could potentially compromise the unity and harmony among the Malaysians ". the status of Bahasa Malaysia as a national language. "He adds that no decision has yet been taken on this subject
Was this study not done before the manifest of the PH is approved by the leaders of the coalition We know that DAP has always recognized the UEC PKR also reiterated its de facto leader, Anwar Ibrahim.In fact, the president of PKR, Dr. Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, already stated years ago during a visit to the Dong Jiao Zong headquarters that recognition of the UEC was purely a matter of academic evaluation for the MQA. So who d & rsquo; Other in the coalition PH does not agree with the recognition of the UEC, and why did they agree to have this clause in the GE14 PH manifesto first place?
UEC a threat to national sovereignty? 19659004] UEC recognition featured in virtually every election Since 1986, the litany of reasons given by the government for not recognizing it has become increasingly bizarre. They said that the UEC program was not up to par, or they said the UEC was not based on the national curriculum and philosophy of education .
Now, even the monarchy has been evoked because it is claimed that the UEC threatens national sovereignty. A local teacher chose to distort the historical facts by claiming that since Chinese educators chose to "reject the national education system in 1961, they should be left to their own devices."
I will give the historical facts for this local professor in a moment. First, to counter the claim that non-Malay mother tongue education poses a threat to national sovereignty, let us examine the current reality of education in Malaysia.
In recent years, international schools using English and other foreign languages have proliferated in our country. According to the economic transformation program, more than 81 international schools are active throughout the country. Now, if this concerted effort to promote foreign schools in Malaysia is not considered a threat to national sovereignty, why should the 60 MICSS be considered a threat to sovereignty?
Do foreign students threaten our national sovereignty? 19659004] We are all aware that our local public and private higher education institutions welcome students from all over the world. A simple question to the Ministry of Education will show that the reason for not recognizing the UEC is completely untenable, namely:
How students from Kazakhstan or Bosnia or China can be admitted into the Malay tertiary institutions when their respective education systems do not follow our national system?
Do our institutions impose a requirement of a SPM credit on BM and a history note on these foreign students to study in institutions using English as a means of writing? instruction?
In writing his manifesto GE14, can PH tell us what aspect of the national education system is the UEC program alleged not to follow? Is the UEC history program not enough "Malaysian"? Was there no Chinese member of the editorial board of the PH manifesto who could have told his comrades that the UEC's history program is certainly Malay and international if we believe in the Holistic learning? However, how could foreign students from any part of the world qualify to enroll in a Malaysian higher education institution since their program can not be as "Malaysian" as that of the Malaysian higher education institution? of the UEC?
Since 1923
For those who do not know the history of our nation, including this local teacher, Malay Chinese high schools exist in our country since 1923, when the school Chung Ling from Penang started his high school classes. At independence in 1957, there were some 86 Chinese high schools in Malaysia. Yes, China's secondary schools were an integral part of the national education system and their examinations were led by the government.
It was only after the 1961 Education Act that many of these schools were forced to become English (yes! Malay – medium, please note! ) At the time because they could not support their schools without government assistance. Mahathir should note that this shows that not all Chinese Malays are wealthy and can support their schools.
After 1961, only 14 Chinese secondary schools remained "independent" schools because they wanted to keep their mother tongue system at all costs. It was after the relaunch of independent schools in the 1970s that the number of MICSS rose to 60 with endless fundraisers. Among the most inspiring contributions were the Trishaw men from Penang who donated their day for mother tongue education.
In 1975, when the MICSS decided to hold the first unified review, Chinese leaders were summoned to Parliament. then Minister of Education Mahathir and they were told in unequivocal terms to cancel the examination "or else …!"
China's education leaders continued regardless of the consequences and the UEC has been held every year since. To date, there has never been a leak in the CEU exams and the syllabus and marking of the exams are done annually with professional precision.
Today, hundreds of foreign higher education institutions recognize the CEU and our MICSS. Students are in countries around the world, including France, Germany and Russia. Since the 1980s, the National University of Singapore has poached hundreds of high-level students not only for their academic excellence, but also for their trilingual abilities in order to balance the cultural mix of their Anglophiles Singaporeans. In a way, we are also subsidizing Singapore's education system! Sarawak's chief minister, Adenan Satem, said that "the education ministry is stupid not to recognize the UEC," as this political failure has resulted in a brain drain of our talented human resources .
years
If the MQA is an institution of professional accreditation without political restraint, it would unambiguously state what its audit of the UEC concluded. Has the new PH government consulted the MQA on this? Regardless of whether the requirements of the MQA are much more stringent than those of the National University of Singapore – it is sufficient to clearly specify the results of this audit. The government can not simply suspend a purely professional decision for more than 40 years.
It should be emphasized from the outset that, unlike foreign students, BM and English are mandatory languages in the UEC and many MICSS schools too. direct GPS during the fifth year of secondary school (the MICSS is a six-year secondary school system). This easily demolishes the myth that MICSS students study only in the Chinese environment
. To be fair to our public service and local tertiary institutions, if this requires a SPM credit to BM for UEC holders, it is reasonable. Nevertheless, the academic accreditation of UEC by MQA is completely different.
The Malays must also know that there are hundreds of non-Chinese students in the MICSS and nearly 100,000 non-Chinese students in Chinese elementary schools in Malaysia. . This contrasts sharply with UiTM which does not admit of non-Bumiputeras in this public institution even though non-Bumiputera taxpayers have also paid for this institution. Remember that there are more than 100,000 "Bumi only" students at the UiTM while there are only 85,000 Chinese, Malay, Indian and Native students in the 60 MICSS. So, which of these systems would you say best to promote intercultural understanding and national unity? Of course, the UITM Bumiputeras policy violates the International Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) that the new foreign minister wants to ratify.
Recognize the UEC now
The truth is that Over the years, the UEC has become a political issue since Umno refuses to recognize the MICSS system because of its Malay agenda, a policy that hinders the creative development of our human resources. The massacre we now see of the PH government is nothing more than a lack of moral courage and political will to break with the years of bigotry and racism of Umno. This is the price to pay to join racial political parties.
Recognize that the CEU will allow graduates of the MICSS to be admitted to our tertiary public institutions as well as to civilian and armed services, which is the declared intention of the government. This will help promote greater integration among Malays and ease the financial situation of MICSS graduates who can not afford tertiary education in private colleges or overseas.
More fundamentally, the denial of PH leaders on their election promises is dishonesty. As Caliph Abu Bakr so strongly stated, "The greatest truth is honesty and the biggest lie is dishonesty." Plato was more cynical when he said, "Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty. "
Kia Soong Suaram's Advisor
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the author. FMT.
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