Cabinet should set up high-powered, multi-racial, representative
and credible committee on racial segregation of students in
schools with short time-frame to complete its work
Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang
(Petaling Jaya, Saturday): Deputy Education
Minister, Datuk Aziz Shamsuddin said after meeting a 10-man delegation
from the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) that the
Education Ministry will set up a seven-man committee comprising practising
and retired academicians from local universities to probe allegations of
racial segregation in schools.
He said the committee, to be set up next month, will decide on the actions
to take if they find that racial polarisation exists in the alleged schools
that were listed by NUTP.
Although this is the most positive response to have been announced by
the government in the past fortnight since the outrageous disclosure of
the long-standing pernicious practice of racial segregation of students
in secondary and primary schools, it raises many questions, viz:
-
Is this seven-man investigation committee into racial segregation of students
to replace the Education Ministry investigation announced by the Education
Minister, Tan Sri Musa Mohamad after the NUTP had accepted his challenge
and publicly listed the some 200 schools which practised racial segregation
of students?
-
Who and when was the decision taken to establish a seven-man investigation
committee to replace the Education Ministry investigation team, as both
the Cabinet and the Education Minister have been on leave, with Musa away
from his duties and the Cabinet not meeting for the past fortnight with
the majority of the Ministers out of the country on holiday leave?
-
Why is the seven-man investigation committee confined to “practising and
retired academicians” when the membership should be more broad-based and
representative?
-
Why should the Deputy Education Minister be talking about “allegations”
of racial segregation of students, when this has already been generally
admitted by Education Ministry officials, like the Perak State Education
Officer, Datuk Ahmad Zainuddin Othman, although they qualified their admission
by claiming that the racial segregation was “unintentional”.
-
The time has come for the end of the various unhealthy bureaucratic syndromes
exposed in the past two weeks since the disclosure of the pernicious practice
of the racial segregation of students, like the “denial syndrome”, “pass-the-buck
syndrome” and “sweeping-under-the-carpet syndrome” and for a courageous
admission that the national educational policy and system had made a colossal
error against the nation-building objective of creating an united Malaysian
generation which must be rectified without any attempt at excuses
or mitigation.
The Cabinet at its first meeting in the new year next Wednesday
should set up a high-powered investigation committee into the pernicious
practice of racial segregation of students in schools and ensure that the
composition of the committee is multi-racial, representative
and credible and given short time-frame to complete its work - to
ascertain the magnitude of the racial segregation of students in the schools
and recommendations as to how schools should be restored as the crucibles
for national unity and nurseries for creating a Bangsa Malaysia in keeping
with Vision 2020.
(29/12/2001)
*Lim Kit Siang - DAP National Chairman