The Education Minister should ensure that Malaysian taxpayers do not have to pay for RM3 million mistake in reprint of Year Six History textbook which showed Malacca in the east coast above Terengganu

Education Minister, Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid should ensure that Malaysian taxpayers do not have to pay for the RM3 million mistake in reprint of Year Six History textbook which showed Malacca in the east coast above Terengganu.

It is shocking as to how such a basic mistake, which should not be made under any circumstances, could be made despite the various levels of checks and counter-checks, from the choice of the author to the writing of the text, including the title to the diagrams and content to the last page.

Clearly, the whole system of checks and counter-checks have broken down in the education ministry, which does not reflect well on the professionalism of the Education Ministry, departments and agencies like the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) delegated with such tasks.

The DBP director general Datuk Dr. Awang Sariyan has said that reprinting the history text would cost RM3 million.

Mahdzir should present a White Paper to Parliament when it meets in March to explain how such a shocking effort could happen, who are the persons and agencies responsible and what action had been taken to ensure that Malaysian taxpayers would not have to pay for the RM3 million mistake.

In this connection, Mahhdzir owes Malaysians an explanation as to why the mistake of putting Malacca in the east coast above Terengganu could be corrected but why the omission of Wong Pow Nee in the formation of Malaysia, as one of the members of the Cobbold Commission which recommended positively on the establishment of Malaysia in 1963, could not be rectified?

MCA leaders and Ministers like its President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai and Deputy President, Datuk Wee Ka Siong, had repeatedly said that school texbooks must “truly reflect” the nation’s history, and that they would ensure that Wong’s role in the formation of Malaysia would be accorded full recognition in the school history texts.

Why are the MCA Ministers and leader silent now when the omission of Wong’s role in the history texts are not being rectified?