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MCA leadership showing its classic "last to know, last to be conscious; unknowing and unconscious" mind-set over the second Mahathir education review committee Media Statement by Lim Kit Siang (Petaling Jaya, Thursday): Yesterday, I said that the statement by the Education Minister, Tan Sri Musa Mohamad that the government does not discount the possibility that vernacular schools will be affected by the current review of the education system spearheaded by the Prime Minister is a most honest, important and significant statement. This is because Musa's statement is as good as saying that in a revamp of the entire national education system to ensure that all Malaysian students, regardless of race or religion, would be attracted to attend the national schools, there is no way that the position, development and future of Chinese and Tamil primary schools would not be affected. Today, I wish to say that the statement by the Deputy Education Minister, Datuk Hon Choon Kam on the second Mahathir education review committee in Sin Chew Daily is also honest, important but most upsetting. Since the announcement of the establishment of the second Mahathir education review committee after the UMNO Supreme Council meeting on November 29, the past three weeks have shown that the MCA, the second biggest party in the Barisan Nasional coalition government with four Cabinet Ministers, is even more in the dark than the DAP, an opposition party, about the far-reaching implications of the most important and high-powered education review committee in the 45-year history of the nation. Hon's statement is an honest admission that the MCA Ministers and leaders were never consulted and knew nothing about the second Mahathir education review committee, although the MCA is "very concerned" about the education review and that if it affects Chinese primary schools, MCA would definitely present its views and stand. Hon should realize that as the second largest party in the Barisan Nasional coalition, MCA's responsibility is not a passive one just to express concern about the second Mahathir education review committee but a pro-active one to fully participate in the entire process of decision-making to formulate its terms of reference, composition as well as to influence the outcome of the educational review every step of the way. It is also shocking that the MCA Ministers and leaders seem to have self-limited their role in government on education to matters where Chinese primary schools could be affected but otherwise to abdicate their responsibility over the whole spectrum of educational issues, whether about primary, secondary or tertiary education, or issues about access, equity, quality of education and effective education management. MCA leaders should clarify whether they are part of the entire Barisan Nasional government or have become so marignlinalised that they have been reduced to be merely part of a fragment of the Barisan Nasional government in the various Ministries not headed by MCA Ministers - as for instance in the Education Ministry, not part of the whole education portfolio but only where Chinese primary schools might be affected! Hon's statement is another classic example of the MCA's "last to know, last to be conscious; unknowing and unconscious" mindset in government when with four Cabinet Ministers, it should be "first to know, first to be conscious" about policy trends and developments in the country. Hon has admitted that the second Mahathir education review committee is not a Cabinet Committee. Everybody knows that it was never set up by the Cabinet but only by the UMNO Supreme Council. The question is why in the two Cabinet meetings after the UMNO Supreme Council meeting on November 29, no Cabinet Minister from the other Barisan Nasional component parties had raised the issue in Cabinet to point out the impropriety and irregularity of the UMNO Supreme Council setting up the second Mahathir education review committee operating from the Prime Minister's Office in Putrajaya and to propose that this should be regularized with a formal Cabinet decision on its establishment, terms of reference, composition and modus operandi. Or have the Cabinet Ministers from the other Barisan Nasional component parties become so marginalized that no one dare to raise such a normal and legitimate question for rectification in the Cabinet? (19/12/2002) * Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman