From The South China Morning Post, HK 11th December 2000

School 'vision' not shared by Chinese

IAN STEWART in Kuala Lumpur

The Malaysian Chinese community organisation Dong Jiao Zhong has said it will continue to defend the culture and identity of the minority race despite criticism from Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Just days after Dr Mahathir castigated its members and called them ''extremists'', the organisation set out its views on a decision by the Education Department to allow people - mainly Malays - without a background in Chinese education to teach languages other than Chinese in Chinese primary schools.

The department gave an assurance that these individuals would only be employed to teach non-Chinese languages. It said the move was necessary because of a shortage of teachers with the proper background. Most schools accepted the plan.

Dong Jiao Zhong urged Chinese primary schools to ensure that the substitute teachers did not teach subjects other than Malay and English. It called on all Chinese schools to accept these teachers ''only when their services are absolutely needed''.

The statement highlighted the watchdog role the organisation sees for itself, but its stance was mild compared with its strong objection which infuriated Dr Mahathir to a government proposal for the establishment of ''vision schools''.

Under the scheme, schools for Chinese, Tamil and Malay speaking children would be brought together in a single compound, where they would be taught separately but share playground facilities and a canteen.

The idea, endorsed by Dr Mahathir, is designed to encourage integration of the three main races in Malaysia. Studies have shown that most students at universities and young adults socialise only with their own race.

But Dong Jiao Zhong and many members of the Chinese community fear the proposal would lead to an erosion of the Chinese language and culture.

Concerns over the vision schools scheme and Dr Mahathir's attacks on Dong Jiao Zhong are believed to have prompted many Chinese to vote against the Government in the recent Kedah State assembly by-election, which the opposition won.

Dr Mahathir said that while Dong Jiao Zhong wanted everything to be ''completely Chinese'', Chinese schools in Malaysia were Malaysian schools. ''Any attempt to isolate the Chinese from other races will obstruct unity among the various races,'' he said.

Dr Mahathir said the Government had frequently assured the Chinese community that Chinese schools would be maintained. He said the Education Act was amended to withdraw the powers vested in the Education Minister to change the status of Chinese schools to national schools, in which Malay was the medium of instruction. ''We have done this after pressure from this same group,'' he said.

But Dong Jiao Zhong points to the earliest days of Malaysian independence, when the plan was to have children of all races attend schools where the main medium of instruction was Malay.

The country's 1,284 Chinese schools have achieved a reputation for academic excellence that has resulted in 88 per cent of Chinese attending them together with 67,000 non-Chinese, mostly Malays. This is despite the fact that the bulk of government funding goes to the 5,400 Malay schools.

Malays and other indigenous people make up about half of Malaysia's population of 22 million, while Chinese account for about 27 per cent and Indians 9 per cent.

In 1987 Dong Jiao Zhong clashed with the government over plans to appoint non-Chinese-speaking headmasters to Chinese schools. A number of Chinese educationalists were detained without trial under the Internal Security Act.

Kua Kia Soong, principal of the New Era College and a Dong Jiao Zhong official, said the best way to further racial integration was to ''promote freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom of association, not by vision schools''.

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