DAP to hold a roundtable conference on Tamil  mother-tongue education on 18th March  as contribution to the national consensus on  the New Deal for Mother-tongue Education in the Eight Malaysia Plan

(Petaling Jaya, Thursday): DAP will hold a roundtable conference on Tamil mother-tongue education on 18th March as contribution to the national consensus on  the New Deal for Mother-tongue Education in the Eighth Malaysia Plan.

The roundtable conference will consider, among other things, the educational  proposals formulated  before the 1999 general elections by the “Group of Concerned Citizens” in a memorandum entitled “Demands Of Indian Malaysians For A Better Future”,  such as:
 

• Education should be a right of every citizen … Mother tongue education must be given due recognition and support so that children of ethnic minorities who opt for such education do not suffer from lack of facilities.
• The establishment of a commission comprising representatives of the government and civil society that will monitor and gauge the educational needs of economically disadvantaged communities and propose suitable and timely educational intervention programmes.
• Early childhood development programmes in the language of the local community  organised through the various ministries and agencies should reach out to plantation worker communities, squatter settlements and low-cost housing areas and to all ethnic groups.
• All government-aided Tamil primary schools be made Bantuan Penuh (fully-aided) and be given equal status as national schools in terms of allocation, development expansion, IT facilities, training programmes and all other forms of support.
• An alternative school must be built prior to closing down of any Tamil school.
• ‘Pupil’s Own Language’ (POL) be made mandatory “mother-tongue education” in national primary and secondary schools.
• Tamil be offered as a subject up to tertiary level of education.

In the fifth decade of Malaysian nationhood, all Malaysians regardless of race have accepted Bahasa Malaysia as the national and official language as the common unifying bond.  There is need, however, to strengthen mother-tongue education, which will be in the spirit of the Constitutional guarantee in Article 152 which stipulates that “ (a) no person shall be prohibited or prevented from using (otherwise than for official purposes), or from teaching or learning, any other language; and (b) nothing in this Clause shall prejudice the right of the Federal Government or any State Government to preserve and sustain the use and study of the language of any  other community in the Federation”.

Article 152 envisages not only preserving and sustaining Chinese and Tamil mother-tongue education, but also those of other ethnic groups in the country, like Telegu and the indigenous groups in Sarawak and Sabah.

The New Deal for Mother-Tongue Education in the Eighth Malaysia Plan, which should the result of a national consensus in a nation-wide discussion involving all political parties, both Barisan Nasional and Barisan Alternative, mother-tongue educational bodies, NGOs and concerned Malaysians, should consider the claims for mother-tongue education status by all ethnic communites and groups as Malaysia’s ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity must be regarded as the country’s greatest heritage and resources for the nation’s future in the era of IT and globalisation.

(1/3/2001)