By LOH FOON FONG
foonfong@thestar.com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: The MCA National Youth Education Bureau has made a police report against the Malay-Muslim Consumer Association and 130 NGOs for allegedly making seditious statements on vernacular schools.
Its chief Chong Sin Woon said the association and NGOs had demanded that the Government allow only one schooling system and alleged that vernacular schools were the main reason for disunity among Malaysians.
“This is not true,” said Chong who told the press outside the Dang Wangi police station after making the report at 3pm yesterday.
Chong said the allegations appeared yesterday in a Malay and three Chinese newspapers and urged police to investigate the matter under the Sedition Act 1948.
Moreover, Chong said the content was based on the national syllabus set by the Education Ministry while Chinese school students would go to the national school after their primary level.
He said that people should strive for the national reconciliation as called for by the Prime Minister and not fan racial enmity.
MCA Youth chairman Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong said the call for a single stream education system was extremist and inflammatory.
“No one should try to create confrontations by oversimplifying the problem of national unity by blaming it on mother-tongue education,” he said in a statement.
He said that the joint statement urging the government to close down all vernacular schools and regulate all private school materials so racial unity could be achieved had slighted the emotions of the Chinese.
Dr Wee pointed that the Federal Constitution provided for such education under Article 152, which allowed for the teaching and learning of other languages without any prohibition.
“Any move to question or obstruct the learning of mother-tongue education is disrespectful to the basic rights of the various communities in Malaysia,” he said.
He said that these groups should be severely condemned and be investigated by the police.
Dr Wee also said that about 14% of non-Chinese also studied in Chinese schools.
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