My 60th birthday wish - A New Deal for Mother-tongue Education in  the Eighth Malaysia Plan as important national  strategy to transform Malaysia into an information society and knowledge economy

(Petaling Jaya, Monday): I want to thank DAP leaders and members as well as like-minded Malaysians who have shared, encouraged and supported my pursuit  for more than half of my life for a Malaysian Malaysia, where there is justice, freedom, democracy and good governance for all Malaysians, regardless of race or religion.

On my 60th birthday, I have several wishes in line with our common quest for a Malaysian Malaysia.

My first wish is the success of the "Save Damansara School Campaign" to preserve the original SJK ©  Damansara to become a model community Chinese primary school for the students in the vicinity and for a new Chinese primary school in Tropicana to be built within eight months as promised by the Education Ministry.

My greatest 60th birthday wish is that there should be a New Deal for Mother-tongue Education in  the Eighth Malaysia Plan 2001-2005 as an important national  strategy to transform Malaysia into an information society and knowledge economy.

The New Deal for Mother-tongue Education should rectify the decades-old government neglect and unfair treatment of Chinese and Tamil education, and as far as Chinese schools are concerned, include the following objectives:

• Build 250 new Chinese primary schools, or 50 new schools a year, under the Eighth Malaysia Plan. During Independence in 1957, there were 1,333 Chinese primary schools with an enrolment of 310,000, but 43 years later, Chinese primary school enrolment has doubled to over 620,000. There had been  no matching doubling of the number of Chinese primary schools in the past four decades, but  a reduction of some 50 Chinese primary schools instead to 1,284 schools.

• A RM1 billion special allocation for the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools and 1,284 Chinese primary schools under the Eight Malaysia Plan in recognition of their contribution to nation-building as well as to redress inadequate government funding in the past. Each of the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools should be allocated RM1 million a year and each Chinese primary school RM100,000 a year  from this special allocation.

• Government recognition of Unified Examinations  Certificate (UEC) of Chinese Independent Secondary Schools as part of the national policy to create a world-class workforce so that  Malaysia will have "a pool of the best talents from at home and abroad" to ensure the country's success as a K-economy. Early this year, Malaysia suffered a serious brain-drain when more than 500 of the "best and brightest" school-leavers from the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools  were directly recruited into Singapore universities. This is a brain drain which cannot be allowed to continue if Malaysia wants to become a successful  K-economy where knowledge, human ingenuity and skill have replaced labour and capital as the most important factor of production.

• Restoration of national and international confidence in the independence, impartiality and integrity of the judiciary;

• Malaysia ranked as among the world's ten least corrupt nations in the Transparency International's annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI);

• Democratisation in all spheres of national life to restore to Malaysians the fundamental human rights of freedom of speech, expression, information, assembly and association.

• The strengthening and consolidation of a multi-ethnic political and national consciousness where all Malaysians are united  in their common concern about "national unity" rather than divided into separate and contradictory calls for "Malay unity", "Chinese unity" or "Indian unity".