Liew Ah Kim to head a DAP nation-wide campaign “Restore Chinese primary schools’ freehold status” to review and amend the Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010 for its neglect of the right to fair and equitable development for Chinese primary schools

(Kuala Lumpur, Monday): At the English-speaking forum on the Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010 at the same venue last night, I spoke of the five fundamental failings of the 10-year education blueprint - not transparent, unrepresentative, undemocratic, unprofessional and sadly lacking in vision. 

There is a sixth fundamental failing – most unfair to mother-tongue education as it gave no place to the future development of Chinese and Tamil primary schools. In fact, there is  no reference whatsoever to Chinese and Tamil primary schools in the 10-year Education Blueprint although one of the long-standing injustices of the national education system is the unfair and inequitable treatment meted out to Chinese and Tamil primary schools, whether in allocation of funds, building of new schools or provision of  adequate number of teachers, etc. 

It is most  shocking and unbelievable  that MCA, Gerakan, SUPP and MIC Ministers in Cabinet could approve the Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010 on June 20 last year when it  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. 

The most charitable interpretation is  that the MCA, Gerakan, SUPP and MIC Ministers never read or understood the contents of the Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010 and did not know what they were doing  when they all gave their approval to it in the Cabinet meeting 13 months ago. 

The strongest evidence of the long-standing unfair and inequitable treatment of mother-tongue primary schools is provided, inadvertently, by Schedule 2.1 of the  Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010, as follows:

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. 

One objective  of the Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010 is  to reduce the crammed class size to 30 pupils per student – but  student congestion in Chinese primary schools has reached the outrageous stage where 55 pupils are crammed into a class, which is impossible for any teacher to do justice to the teaching profession by giving  individual attention to the pupils.

In fact, as the size of the new classes of the Chinese primary schools are about double the size of the new classes of the national primary schools, there should be about 100 new Chinese primary schools in the five years from 1995 to 2000 to cater to the 4.7 per cent increase in new student enrolment alone, without taking into account the neglect of the previous four decades to build new Chinese primary schools.

Last year, the government targetted the building of 600 single-session schools – but as far as I know, there is not a single Chinese primary school in these  600 new single-session schools!

The Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010, which gives  no place or recognition to the future of Chinese and Tamil primary schools, has proven right the Dong Jiao Zong’s description of the transformation of the status of Chinese mother-tongue education  from  “freehold in 1957  to  TOL in 1961  to squatters in 1996”.

The status of Chinese schools in 1957 was that of “freehold” as under the 1957 Education Ordinance, the Chinese education  system incorporating  Chinese primary schools and Chinese secondary schools was given recognition by the authorities for the first time.  In  the 1961 Education Act, the status of Chinese education was downgraded to that of “Temporary Occupation Licence (TOL)”, as Chinese primary schools  could be converted into national primary schools any time the Education Minister deemed fit.  The 1996 Education Act reduced the status of Chinese primary schools to that of “squatters” - without proper legal status or position. 

The Education Development Blueprint clearly treated Chinese primary schools as no better than that of “squatters”, with  no mention or reference to the future development of Chinese primary schools and their right to fair and equitable allocation of public funds. 

The  Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010 approved by the Cabinet in June last year is grossly unfair to Chinese and Tamil primary schools, and  it vindicated the DAP’s call last year for a   New Deal for Mother-Tongue Education in the Eighth Malaysia Plan with regard to both  Chinese and Tamil  primary schools.

The Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010 should be reviewed and amended to restore to Chinese and Tamil primary schools their rightful place in the mainstream of the national education system.

DAP will launch a nation-wide campaign “Restore Chinese primary schools’ freehold status” to review and amend the Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010 for its neglect of the right to fair and equitable development for Chinese primary schools.

The  six-point New Deal for Mother-Tongue Education which the DAP had advocated early last year will be the centrepiece of the DAP “Restore Chinese primary schools’ freehold status” Campaign, viz:

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 DAP “Restore Chinese primary schools’ freehold status” Campaign  will be headed by Liew Ah Kim, former DAP National Vice Chairman and former MP for Seputeh. It  will be the joint project of the Mother-tongue Education (Chinese) bureau of the DAP 10-Year Education Master Plan Committee and the DAP Veterans Bureau – with Ronnie Liu, DAP National Publicity Secretary as deputy chairman and Au Yong Han Wah as secretary of the campaign.

(29/7/2002)