The very first step for the Malay ultras to take in
the right direction is to cease making a scapegoat out of Chinese and
Tamil primary schools.
By Dr Boo Cheng Hau
The recently announced National Education Blueprint contains nothing
new. And it shows the powers-that-be have no real intention to listen to
the public or make any bold reforms to our ailing education system.
It is a repetition of the sad old story about racial prejudice, not
much different from the so-called “National Education Policy” which was
largely based on Umno’s Malay nationalist belief that the national
language should be the sole medium of instruction.
Proponents of the Malay-medium only policy also emphasise the Malay
nationalist perspective of history that having one common language –
such as in our neighbours Indonesia and Thailand – can save Malaysia
from disintegration.
Racial prejudice and political demagoguery as the basis for our
nation’s education agenda of true unity will not get us far. Let me
prove how discriminatory is our education system and the false
impressions that it projects.
I had a taste of victory for what it means to have “equal
opportunities” in education about 30 years ago when I argued for
admission, on behalf of a schoolmate, into an American university which
has produced some of the Nobel laureates.
My friend was originally from Taiwan but studied in a Chinese
independent secondary school here in Malaysia. She did not sit the SPM
or UEC (
Unified Examination Certificate). To my surprise, the admission officer of the American university requested for UEC results in lieu of SPM qualification.
She did not sit the UEC because the exam was still new at that time.
After a long discussion, the admission officer agreed with my proposal
that she be admitted conditionally on producing evidence of completing
12 years of primary and secondary education – a standard which almost
all American universities and colleges go by.
She was then admitted “under probation” for one semester, meaning she
would be considered a regular student after the period of study with a
GPA of 2.0 and above (an average of C and above). She graduated
eventually without any impediment.
Her experience goes to show how democratic, liberal and flexible the
American education system is. This is one of the key factors that allow
the United States to become the most technologically advanced country,
and one to which many talents from other parts of the world choose to
emigrate.
The value of the UEC
In the 1970s, nobody in Malaysia took the UEC exam seriously except
for the powers-that-be who attempted to ban it on account that the exam
was (perceived to be) “anti-national”.
Nonetheless besides Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore where the
UEC was recognised, many American universities and colleges had already
begun accepting it as a gateway for college admission.
As far back as 30 years ago, one of my classmates was admitted to the
famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology based on her UEC results
and Chinese Independent School coursework assessments.
Would our public universities and UiTM open their admission policies
and welcome UEC holders by integrating them into the mainstream of
higher education institutes rather than discriminating them? Some top
American universities even admit Chinese independent secondary school
students based on school results and class ranking without referring to
standardised examinations such as SPM, UEC, GCE, SAT and the like.
Yet after 30 long years, our own Malaysian government still despises
the UEC as “anti-national”. In fact, except for respective language
subjects, all UEC subjects are offered in three languages; in other
words, one can opt to have his math, science, or other papers tested in
English, Malay or Chinese.
Chinese independent school graduates are barred from using their UEC
results as a means of admission to local public universities and teacher
training colleges. This discrimination is deemed necessary to maintain
Umno’s self-righteous “National Education Policy” for the promotion of
“interracial unity”.
How can political demagoguery such as Umno’s ever help in promoting
national unity and interracial integration? One could argue that the
party is actually more interested in maintaining its tight grip on power
by continuing to mislead the country that vernacular schools somehow
pose a hidden threat.
STPM and matriculation – apple and orange?
The powers-that-be have since declared that racial quotas are no
longer applied in local public universities. Instead, they claim a
“merit-based” admission system has been put in place.
However, at the same time, university admission standards are
“diversified” into two separate entry points – STPM and matriculation.
After years of protests by the non-Malays, only 10% of matriculation
programmes has been opened up to the non-Bumiputera, and even this
percentage is described by the Malay nationalists as a “sell-out” of
Malay rights.
Non-Malays are supposed to be grateful for this small “kindness”,
like once upon a time coloureds were supposed to thank their white
masters for allowing them to go to schools in apartheid South Africa
despite great disparities along racial lines in school facilities.
Almost all the non-Malays who managed to gain a seat in the local
universities are students who sat the STPM. Many rue this blatant
division of university entrance assessment – along racial lines – as
comparing apples and oranges.
Satu Sekolah’s inherent contradiction
The authorities contradict themselves by professing a single-language
system to promote national unity through putting children under one
roof but at the same time segregating them either at Form 1 or when they
finish Form 5.
There is an obvious discrepancy between the teaching facilities
provided to the vernacular schools which sorely lack government aid and
support, and the residential schools and Mara junior science colleges as
well as the elite schools catering for Malays – for example, the
prestigious Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) and Tunku Kurshiah
College (TKC).
Institutional racism practised in public university admission routes
gives rise to an added dimension of polarisation. The racial
distribution of students is further exacerbated when non-Malays,
erroneously seen as well-to-do, are enrolled in private higher
institutions of learning. Most people seem to forget that privately
funded education, whether locally or abroad, comes at a heavy cost to
their parents.
The indirect makings of apartheid
To generalise most Malays as “poor” and all non-Bumiputera, particularly the Chinese, as “rich” is just as good as apartheid.
The Malay ultras believe they are above being associated with the
apartheid system in South Africa created with the ostensible excuse of
helping the “poor”, Dutch-speaking whites of that country.
But then what should the international community make of UiTM –
Malaysia’s biggest public university with campuses in every state –
where almost all its students belong predominantly to a single race?
In the former apartheid of South Africa and during the 1950s in the
Confederate states of the American south, physical segregation was made
visible by the sign saying, “No Coloured and Dogs allowed”.
In Malaysia, there are no signs to say “No Non-Bumis and Dogs allowed”. However,
de facto apartheid still permeates through the fabric of the Malaysian public education system. It is
de facto racial segregation in its utmost hypocritical disguise without leaving any physical evidence.
Therefore, I see no difference between those poor whites in the
former Confederate states of the American south that once held
demonstrations against university admission of black students and those
Malay ultras that hold demonstrations barring “non-Bumiputera” from
entering local public institutions.
UiTM students did demonstrate against their university opening its
door a crack when Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim proposed
relaxing the admission just a tiny bit to the so-called “Non-Bumis”.
America’s highest court ruled for equality
In
Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the US Supreme Court unanimously decided that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”.
It stinks of double standard, if not a glaring blind spot, when
vernacular schools keep getting blamed for institutional racism in
Malaysia. If mother tongue vernacular schools (open to all students) are
incorrectly termed as racist, then the one-race UiTM is nothing but
apartheid.
The old, presumed poverty line along the race divide is no longer
valid, not when Malaysia has endured discriminative policies predicated
on ethnicity since 1970, which is all of 42 years or almost half a
century.
There are very few Malay intellectuals willing to tackle the truth of
the matter, but Dr Azly Rahman is one of them. At least he’s been
honest and bold enough to speak out on the “bankrupt Umno ideology” of
race supremacy in his article
Dismantle Our Apartheid Education – see http://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/191989.
What is required is for more members of the Malay intelligentsia to
question the veracity of a “moral” claim in the perpetuation of a quota
system that amounts to apartheid. The only difference is that
segregation, like that perpetuated by residential schools, Mara junior
colleges and UiTM, is couched using terminology portraying a righteous
morality.
The other difference is that Chinese schools are accessible to any
non-Chinese, but UiTM does not welcome the non-Malays. In some Chinese
independent secondary schools, non-Chinese are given a blanket free
tuition.
Are Malays courageous to re-evaluate?
The Malays are a strong majority in numbers and without doubt
politically dominant. Why should Umno cling tenaciously to the view that
preferential treatment based on race is the “affirmative action” that
Malays still require?
Professor Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi in
Memories of Unity vividly
describes his confidence to compete in his science class and how he
emerged as one of the top students among his almost all Chinese
classmates back in the 1970s (see
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?sec=lifefocus&file=/2012/9/23/lifefocus/12063972).
I had a Malay classmate who went to the same Chinese independent
school as I did. He graduated as one of the top students and went to a
local public university, and he is currently a lecturer at another local
public university.
It is a myth that Bumiputera students are unable to compete with
non-Bumiputera students on a level playing field. This misconception is
wrongly used to justify the institutional racism imposed on the public
education from top to bottom.
There are tens of thousands of Malays who have made it in local and
prestigious foreign universities and thrived in adverse socio-cultural
settings. There is no moral justification for segregating Malaysian
post-secondary students into STPM/ matriculation except for satisfying
Umno’s racial imperatives.
NEP and education apartheid
A few successful Malay billionaire cronies do not mitigate the
failure with regard to certain protectionist areas of the NEP. This
includes educational apartheid. The rejuvenation of the vernacular
schools since the late 1970s when NEP went into full swing is a
consequence of our race policies, and not the chief cause of racism.
The NEP was based upon the empirical generalisation that Chinese and
Indian Malaysians were all well off and should be “positively
discriminated”against in order to help the “poor Malays”.
It’s a different story today as the civil service has become
Malay-dominated and this is empirical truth. The tables have been turned
as Malaysians of Chinese and Indian descent are marginalised.
The original purpose of the NEP to eradicate the identification of
race with profession – Malay farmers, Chinese shopkeepers, Indian clerks
– is sidetracked when the civil service has become wholly identified
with the Malay race. The racial traits along professions, as reflected
in the hiring practices of both the private and public sectors, have
been deepened by the NEP.
When I recently requested some documents to be certified by a
government department, the Malay clerk gave me a jealous one-eye wink
knowing that it was for the purpose of applying to colleges in the US.
The one-eye wink might perhaps have been nothing more than the coded
message that all you “Chinamen” are rich and can afford to send your
children overseas to be educated. This only goes to show up the failure
of the NEP in correcting the racial prejudice among races in Malaysia.
How the Chinese prioritise education
The fact is that I told my children I would sell our house and live
in a smaller one if we needed funds for their education. I mean
education is where they would learn something new and be happy including
getting away from institutional racism. We neither hope for Public
Service Department or any other government scholarships after hearing so
many sad stories of racial degradation.
Selling homes and other property for the sake of the children’s
education among the lower- and middle-class Chinese Malaysians is not a
new practice. I remember my mother decided to sell off the six-acre
rubber plantation left by my deceased father to put myself and my sister
through university.
She later worked as a babysitter to cover all our expenses studying
overseas. We always thought that there might be more Malays who did not
have land to sell. Nonetheless, our good reasoning has not helped many
Malays to get rid of their own ingrained racial prejudice both against
themselves and other races.
As I write this article, coincidentally, my 17-year-old daughter has
just received news that a high-ranking American university has agreed to
admit her into its Fine Arts programme based on her multiple talents,
multilingual skills and ability to play the Chinese zither and flute.
Some universities already made it clear they will admit her by waiving
the requirement of her SPM or UEC results.
On the contrary, her talent in playing ancient Chinese musical
instruments is definitely not a criterion for admission into any local
public university. On the contrary, it may even work against her favour
as it could be looked at as a form of Chinese chauvinism and clinging to
our ancestral roots.
Deserving of places in local universities
I am not trying to boast my daughter’s academic achievement. She is
actually a B-average student but it sure makes a parent proud when one’s
child deservedly gains recognition for her talents and, more
importantly, she will be able to further develop her talents without
being labelled as a non-Bumiputera.
I am glad that her dedication to social work and extracurricular
activities, including organising a joint concert of Chinese Orchestra
and Western bands, won her recognition from some highly ranked American
universities.
One of her recent achievements is receiving a Gold Medal in an
international Chinese essay-writing contest in Taiwan. Instead of
chucking her unique credential aside, an American university admission
director gave great words of encouragement, such as “your family must be
very proud of you [for the Gold Medal received]…We would like you to be
with us, and I hope you will continue to contribute to the
international programme here if you decide to join us”.
I was surprised that she was offered admission and given a partial
academic scholarship before we even sent out applications to other
American colleges and local private universities.
Some universities are amazed that our students can master two or
three languages. They usually give positive encouragement like:
“Considering English is your third language, your English is really
good.” No parents will send their kid to a college where he or she faces
the possibility of being humiliated and degraded on account of race,
creed and “non-native status” when my daughter is actually a native-born
fourth generation Malaysian.
As a matter of fact, most UEC holders have a greater proficiency in
Bahasa Malaysia which is their second language as compared to English
which is their third language. If the UEC holders can do well in
universities overseas that teach in English, why can’t they be given the
same opportunities by our local public universities?
It might be true that their Bahasa Malaysia may not be as good
compared with SPM/STPM holders just as their English may not be as good
as the Americans, British or Australians when they enrol in American,
Australian or British universities. However, if they are given the
opportunity to enrol in local public universities, they will be able to
polish their BM just like how when given the opportunity to study abroad
they are able to polish their English.
More
importantly, such openness is needed in order to “converge” the
vernacular school alumni into the local higher education institutions
and complete an education integration process rather than forcibly
“diverge” them to local private institutions and overseas colleges.
We have to be fair and realistic in assessing our students’ language
ability based on what is the best they can do in their learning
environment. In fact, cultural immersion is the best method to improve
Malay language or any other second language proficiency instead of
educational segregation like what has been practised here.
Some 30 years ago, it was rare to encounter Americans learning an
Asian language. Today, there are American reporters who insist on
interviewing me in perfect Mandarin or Bahasa Indonesia. It is a
fast-changing world out there but it seems our Umno elites – with the
exception of Najib Tun Razak whose son is a fluent Mandarin speaker –
are lagging behind time.
The very first step for the Malay ultras to take in the right
direction is to cease making a scapegoat out of Chinese and Tamil
primary schools. It is an unfounded charge that little children are
responsible for racism and racial disunity in Malaysia.
It
is, on the other hand, our fear to embrace cultural diversity and true
interracial integration that has left us lagging behind many other
countries. It is time for the Malay ultras to open their eyes and
correct their ingrained prejudice that has worked against their own
competitiveness
"Maybe, he was not allowed to speak up in the CEC. Even the party's media organ Rocketkini has not given him a chance to publicised his proposal in the paper," claimed Marshall.
Jelutong
DAP Socialist Youth chief Daniel Gooi urged the party to continue to
field young candidates in the coming polls, as several leaders are
"retiring" from the wing, like RSN Rayer (Seri Delima) and Ng Wei Aik
(wing chief and Komtar assemblyman).
Investigators
have claimed that the Kabul Bank has been fraudulently obtaining
hundreds of millions of dollars and siphoning it off to a few
individuals connected to President Hamid Karzai (left). 
Last
week, Umno held its 66th general assembly.
In some cases, divisional heads are alleged to be given hundreds if not thousands of taxi permits as inducement. 
Sadly,
many Malays refrain from criticising the government because they feel
indebted to the government when in truth, they should be grateful to the
taxpayer. The Malays know that Umno does not represent them, but they
have been brainwashed to keep silent, with tiny inducements and the fear
of God to keep them in check. 
He
added that the rhetoric coming out from Umno and MCA went against Prime
Minister Najib Abdul Razak's 1Malaysia policy and he should put a stop
to the practice of "divide and rule".
Lim (left)
warned members not to treat lightly BN and Umno's ability to not only
win two-thirds at the federal level but also recapture Penang in the
coming polls.
Lim was accompanied by national chairman Karpal Singh (right),
state DAP chief Chow Kon Yeow, while other Pakatan leaders like state
PKR chief and Deputy Chief Minister I Mansor Othman and state PAS
committee member Jamaluddin Saad, were present.
When contacted, Fadiah (left)
described the continuous investigation against Suaram as a form of
harassment and attempt to impede its work, which includes pursuing
alleged kickbacks in the RM7.3 billion purchase of two Scorpene
submarines by Malaysia in the French courts.
When contacted, KLSCAH chief executive officer Tang Ah Chai (right) said the police made copies of documents on transactions between Suaram and KLSCAH. 
Instead, he explained that it was a figurative speech intended for his critics to learn English.
However,
Ng and team, have decided not to cooperate with the police so long as
the details and the identity of the officer involved are kept under
wraps.
The memorandum 
At the same event, Sim referred to a statement by former Police Chief Musa Hassan (right), who claimed that Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein had "
The choice has become much clearer after Shahrizat Abdul Jalil’s 
Let's
put Najib’s sincerity under the closest scrutiny, The following is
exactly what the apprentice prime minister who has been dodging his
political opponents and the rakyat in public debate actually 
Or
the shocking murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu was simply a negligence on
the part of the two ‘accused’, a case in which no motive was found for
the killing? Or time and again firing teargas into peaceful crowds was
just a ‘mistake’?
The
fact is, Malaysia’s public institutions - be it Parliament, the
judiciary, the police force or the public service - have been turned
into serving only Umno’s interests. The Malay party could not have
maintained its rule for so many years without having first subjugated
all these institutions. 
Azrulhazrin
said it was related to a gathering held by the Himpunan Hijau committee
at the MPK1 field in Kuantan, declining to provide further details.
Phua
said that they may get a lawyer to accompany them when their statements
are recorded tomorrow, as a number of them lawyers had agreed to assist
on hearing about the police summon. 
Onyourtoes: This is the party that talked about being sensitive to other races before the Umno assembly began.