(Petaling Jaya, Thursday):
The voters
of Ketari should be proud that their by-election on March 31 is so important
that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had given an unprecedented interview to seven Chinese
newspapers to influence their votes before his departure for Moscow.
As a
result, Mahathir has made Chinese primary schools and mother-tongue education
the top issues in the Ketari by-election.
However,
although Mahathir had sought to assure the Ketari voters about the Barisan
Nasional government’s attitude towards mother-tongue education in general and
Chinese primary schools in particular, his answers particularly with regard to
the “ultimate objective” of the national education policy, new Chinese
primary schools, Vision Schools and the re-opening of the Damansara Chinese primary school, have given more cause for
concern than assurance that the government is prepared, in philosophy, principle
and practice, to accept Chinese primary schools and mother-tongue education as
an integral part of the mainstream national education policy in plural Malaysia.
As
the Prime Minister had given an unprecedented
interview with special focus on Chinese education for the Ketari by-election,
the Ketari voters should rise to the occasion to give a historic response on
behalf of the Malaysian people, and in particular the Malaysian Chinese
community, on the rightful place of mother-tongue
education and Chinese primary schools in the country on polling day on March 31,
2002.
Mahathir
has vested the Ketari by-election with far-reaching national importance, as it will decide not only
who will be the new Ketari assemblyman in the Pahang State Assembly, but the
occasion for the people of Ketari to deliver a
historic national response on behalf of the Malaysian people and nation
as to the policy on mother-tongue
education and Chinese primary schools which should be pursued by Malaysia in the
21st century.
(14/3/2002)