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Strengthening of national schools to make it the first choice of the rakyat and giving fair treatment to mother-tongue education as building new Chinese primary schools to meet increasing student enrolment needs must be treated as two completely separate questions and not a zero-sum game, trying to achieve the former at the expense of the latter Media Statement by Lim Kit Siang (Parliament, Wednesday):  The strengthening of national schools to make it the first choice of the rakyat and giving fair treatment to mother-tongue education as building new Chinese primary schools to meet increasing student enrolment needs must be treated as two completely separate questions and not a zero-sum game, trying to achieve the former at the expense of the latter.  It will be most short-sighted  if the whole strategy to make national schools the first choice of the rakyat is by continuing to deprive  fair treatment for  mother-tongue education, such as  the unjust treatment of Chinese and Tamil primary schools, whether in terms of refusal to build  new schools to meet increasing student enrolment needs, fair allocation of school development funds, adequate teacher-training, etc.  Such a strategy is condemned to failure, as it can only promote even greater disunity in our multi-racial population as well as  detrimental to long-term national interests to enhance our  international competitiveness in  facing the challenges of globalization, as it will deprive Malaysia of quality education and excellence of human capital,  which is  the most valuable asset in the new K-based economy.  The contention of those who oppose the building of new Chinese primary schools to meet the pent-up student enrolment needs on the ground that it would contribute to greater racial polarization and national disunity is not tenable  for many reasons, including: Ignoring the fact that students in the Chinese primary schools do not come exclusively from one racial group, i.e. the Chinese, as more than 10 per cent of the enrolment comprise Malay, Indian, Iban and Kadazan students; The double-standards in defending the existence of educational institutions which are exclusively for  one ethnic group, like UiTM, which one Cabinet Minister had declared would not be open to non-Malay students; Ignoring the fact that over 90 per cent of the Chinese primary schools continue secondary education in national secondary schools, giving them the opportunity to interact with a more multi-racial student population at the secondary and tertiary levels. A successful and viable strategy to strengthen national schools and make it the first choice of the rakyat must be one which could make them even more attractive to parents and students  than national-type primary schools because of its educational quality and learning environment to develop the best talents and potentials of the students even when Chinese and Tamil primary schools are given fair and just treatment as an integral part of the national educational mainstream. (16/3/2005) * Lim Kit Siang, Parliamentary Opposition Leader, MP for Ipoh Timur & DAP Central Policy and Strategic Planning Commission Chairman