MCA, Gerakan, MIC  and SUPP Ministers should explain how they could approve the  Education Development Blueprint (2001-2010) which completely ignores the right to fair and equitable development  of Chinese and Tamil primary schools for the next decade

(Petaling Jaya, Thursday): There has been a strange silence from the Education Minister, Tan Sri Musa Mohamad, his deputy education ministers, parliamentary secretary as well as all Cabinet Ministers to the pointed queries which I had been raising in the past three days about the 10-year Education Development Blueprint (2001-2010) after the DAP had finally forced the Education Minister to give copies of the blueprint to the DAP on Monday, such as: 

• Why wasn’t the Education Development Blueprint (2001-2010), which was unveiled last October and which the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad said in his foreword was to produce “a national education system that is comparable to other developed nations” tabled in Parliament although Parliament had been in session three times in the past ten months? 

• Why wasn’t the Education Development Blueprint made widely accessible to all educationists and organizations concerned about education, whether Malay educational or literary associations,  National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP), Dong Jiao Zong or  Tamil educational societies, especially as Musa had invited public feedbacks for a national consensus on the 10-year Education Development Blueprint before a final draft is presented to the Cabinet? 

• How can there be any public discussion or debate on the government’s 10-year Education Development Blueprint when it has been a secret report for the last 10 months without anyone, whether educationists, MPs or organizations concerned about education being able to get a copy? 

•  Why isn’t the Blueprint posted on the Education Ministry website on the Internet for easy accessibility, as is now the routine practice in countries which are serious about information technology? 

• Why was the 10-year Education Development Blueprint so lacking in professionalism and foresight in failing to give top priority to introduce radical measures to stop the decline of English standards in schools and universities and the undermining of our international competitiveness that a special committee under the Education Ministry’s director-general Datuk Abdul Rafie Mahat on raising English standards in schools had to be set up in May this year?

But the biggest issue which the MCA, Gerakan, MIC  and SUPP Ministers should explain is  how they could approve the  Education Development Blueprint (2001-2010) which completely ignores the right to  fair and equitable development  of Chinese and Tamil primary schools for the next decade, while justifying the continued neglect and unfair development and allocations of funds all these decades?  In fact, there is simply no mention or reference to the future development of Chinese and Tamil primary schools in the 10-year national  education blueprint. 

I find it most amazing that after my  daily questioning for three days, no MCA, Gerakan or SUPP Minister  or  leader could explain the shocking statistics given in Jadual 2.1 of the Education Development Blueprint,  viz:

Jadual 2.1

Bilangan Sekolah, Kelas, dan Enrolmen Sekolah Rendah pada Tahun 1995 dan 2000 

 These figures capture in a nutshell the unfair development and treatment meted out to Chinese primary schools under the national  education system.  In the five years between 1995 to 2000,  the enrolment in Chinese primary schools had increased by 4.7 per cent from 594,520 to 622,712, with the number of classes increasing by 6.4 per cent from 16,651 to 17,729, but  there had not only been no increase in the number of Chinese primary schools, actually there was a decrease of 0.3% or a reduction of four schools from 1,288 to 1,284! 

In the case of national primary schools, student enrolment increased by 4.4 per cent from 2,100,638 in 1995 to 2,193,582 in 2000, with the number of classes increasing by 12.8 per cent from 63,243 to 71,349 while the number of national primary schools  increased by 4.9% from 5,141 to 5,393. 

In the Chinese primary schools from 1995 to 2000, enrolment increased by 28,192 pupils, the number of classes increased by 1,078 but the number of schools reduced by four.  In comparison, for  the national primary schools for the same period, enrolment  increased by 92,844 pupils, 8,106 classes and 252 new schools. 

As the percentage of student enrolment in the Chinese primary schools between 1995 to 2000 is higher than national primary schools, there should be at least 50 new Chinese primary schools if not more – considering that the student ratio to each class is much higher in the Chinese primary schools as compared to national primary schools. 

How can the four MCA Minister, Datuk Seri Ling Liong Sik, Datuk Chua Jui Meng, Datuk Fong Chan Onn and Datuk Ong Ah Ting, the Gerakan Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Lim Keng Yaik and the SUPP Minister, Datuk  Law Hien Ding, justify being a party to a 10-year Education Development Blueprint where Chinese primary schools and mother-tongue education are not given fair and equitable treatment in the next decade? 

If they have no ideas as to what to put into the 10-year Education Development Blueprint (2001-2010), they should have adopted the six-point New Deal for Mother-Tongue Education which the DAP had advocated early last year, namely:

• Build 500 new Chinese primary schools, or 50 new schools a year, under the 10-Year Education Development Blueprint.

• RM1 billion special allocation for the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools and the  1,200  Chinese primary  schools to be paid out in the next five years in recognition of their past contribution to nation-building.

• Allow building of new or re-establishment of previous  Chinese Independent Secondary Schools.

• Government recognition of Unified Examinations  Certificate (UEC) of Chinese Independent Secondary Schools.

• Make Pupil’s Own Language (POL)  a compulsory subject for all pupils in national  primary and  secondary schools.

• Fair allocation of development expenditures to different streams of primary schools based on student enrolment, i.e. the total development allocation of RM2.75 billion for  primary schools under the five-year Eighth Malaysia Plan (2001-2005)  should be distributed into  RM2.1 billion or 75% for national primary schools, RM577 million or 21% for Chinese primary schools and  RM99 million or 3.6% for Tamil primary schools.

The MCA, Gerakan and SUPP Ministers should ask for a review and amendment of the 10-Year Education Development Blueprint to make up for the serious omission by incorporating the six-point  New Deal for Mother-Tongue Education with regard to Chinese mother-tongue education.

(18/7/2002)