Documentation

HOPES FADE IN THE UEC RECOGNITION FARCE

Press statement by Kua Kia Soong, SUARAM Adviser 3 Jan 2019

There seems to be no end to the UEC recognition farce. The Prime Minister now tells us that “the recognition of UEC needs to consider the feelings of Malays.” This is after the Education Minister had set up a special committee “…to gather views on recognising the Unified Examination Certificate”. The justification for selection of the committee members was never spelled out nor were the terms of reference clear from the start. The Minister had earlier said that formal recognition of the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) will only be made “after a comprehensive and holistic study on the issue has been completed… whether the formal recognition of UEC could potentially compromise unity and harmony among Malaysians … the status of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language…”

Isn’t it amazing that the Cambridge O levels and A levels have been held in our country since Independence but we don’t hear anyone voicing consternation about how these foreign English-language examinations can hurt the feelings of the Malays or compromise the unity and harmony among Malaysians or threaten the status of the national language!

It was clear from the start that the Prime Minister and his Pribumi Party had no intention of recognising the UEC, the school leaving certificate of the Malaysian Independent Chinese Secondary Schools. We now know that their party exists to champion the “Bumiputera Agenda”. As Mahathir has admitted, these election promises were made because PH never thought they would win anyway…

Wasting time and money over special committee

So why put the country through the farce of setting up a “special committee” and wasting everybody’s time and money?

What credentials do the special committee members have to evaluate the UEC?

What factual data and criteria will they use to evaluate the UEC?

How broad is the spectrum of people whose views are sought?

Don’t we already know who form the majority in this country?

From the interview with Sinchew, the Prime Minister himself has exposed his ignorance and prejudice against the UEC; the journalist had to remind him time and again of the facts surrounding the UEC.

Reveal MQA’s assessment of the UEC

The only missing piece in this whole UEC recognition farce is the professional assessment of the UEC by the Malaysian Quality Assurance (MQA) that is tasked with doing this job of academic accreditation of certificates. Thus, if the MQA is a professional accreditation institution without political constrictions, it would spell out in no uncertain terms what its audit of the UEC has concluded.

Has the new PH government consulted the MQA on this? It does not matter if the requirements of the MQA are far more stringent than the National University of Singapore’s – it just has to spell out in no uncertain terms what the results of that audit are! The government cannot simply suspend a purely professional decision for more than forty years!

It should be pointed out at the outset that, in sharp contrast to the capabilities of foreign students, BM and English are compulsory language papers in the UEC and many MICSS schools also run the SPM at the fifth secondary year (The MICSS is a six-year secondary school system). This easily demolishes the myth that MICSS students only study in the Chinese medium.

To be fair to our civil service and local tertiary institutions, if they require SPM credit in BM for UEC holders, that is reasonable. Nevertheless, the academic accreditation of the UEC by MQA is a totally separate matter altogether.

Malaysians should also know that there are hundreds of non-Chinese students in the MICSS and almost 100,000 non-Chinese students in Chinese-medium primary schools of Malaysia. This is in sharp contrast to UiTM which does not admit ANY “non-Bumiputeras” into this public institution even though “non-Bumiputera” taxpayers have also paid for this institution! Remember that there are more than 100,000 “Bumis Only” students in UiTM while there are only 85,000 Chinese, Malay, Indian and indigenous peoples in the 60 MICSS.

So, which of these systems would you say better promotes inter-cultural understanding and national unity? For sure the “Bumiputeras-only” policy at UiTM violates the International Convention for the Eradication of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and that is why Parti Pribumi’s “Bumiputera Agenda” does not allow it to ratify ICERD. Article 153 is merely a red-herring tossed into the debate.

The only new factor in the UEC saga is the PH election promise

It is clear that PH won the vast majority of the Chinese votes during GE14 mainly because among other promises, the PH manifesto and the PH leaders pledged to recognise the UEC, the school leaving certificate of the Malaysian Independent Chinese Secondary Schools that has been maligned by UMNO all these years since 1975. Voters were given the impression that such recognition was part of PH’s reform in a new and inclusive Malaysia.

The UEC has been held every year since it started in 1975. Today, hundreds of respected foreign tertiary institutions around the world recognize the UEC and our MICSS students are found in countries all over the globe, including France, Germany and Russia. Ever since the Eighties, the National University of Singapore has been poaching hundreds of top UEC students not only for their academic excellence but also for their trilingual capabilities in an effort to balance the cultural mix of their Anglophile Singaporeans.

PH lacks moral courage and political will

The truth is that, through the years the UEC has become a political issue since UMNO refuses to recognize the MICSS system because of their “Malay Agenda”, a policy that is holding back creative development of our human resources. The pussyfooting we see now from the PH government is nothing more than the lack of moral courage and political will to break from the years of UMNO bigotry and racism. This is the price we pay for adhering to race-based political parties…

Recognising the UEC will allow MICSS graduates to be admitted into our public tertiary institutions as well as the civil and armed services, which is the stated intention of the government recently. This will help to promote greater integration among Malaysians and also alleviate the financial plight of those MICSS graduates who cannot afford tertiary education in the private colleges or abroad. In other words, by not recognising the UEC, the PH Government is depriving a sector of the Malaysian population of their human right to education and access to state institutions that have been paid for by all Malaysian taxpayers.

More fundamentally, the reneging on their election promises by PH leaders is patent dishonesty. As Caliph Abu Bakr so strongly pronounced on this principle: “The greatest truth is honesty and the greatest falsehood is dishonesty.” Plato was more cynical when he said: “Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty…”

Urging Lifting of Book Ban on G25 Book by Coalition for Freedom of Expression

The Coalition for Freedom of Expression (CFOE) urges the Home Minister to promptly lift the ban on the book “Breaking the Silence: Voices of moderation – Islam in a constitutional democracy” published by G25.The banning of the book, carried out by then-Home Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi in June 2017, was arguably unconstitutional. Any restriction on the freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 10 must be for a legitimate reason as set out in the Constitution and must be necessary, proportionate and reasonable.

The banning of this book does not fall into any of the categories that would constitute a legitimate restriction. It is inconceivable that a book of articles by distinguished former civil servants, which explores the concept of moderation in Islam in the context of Malaysia as a constitutional democracy, can be a threat to public order. Lifting the ban on this book should be straightforward and carried out promptly. The Pakatan Harapan government should not prolong or be complicit in the arbitrary silencing of critical and reasoned voices which was carried out by the previous government.The CFOE calls for the immediate lifting of the book ban and also for the Printing Presses and Publications Act, under which this ban was made, to be abolished as soon as possible, as promised by Pakatan Harapan in its election manifesto. We also call for a moratorium on the banning of any books under this Act in the meantime.

The Coalition for Freedom of Expression (CFOE) is a group of civil society organisations advocating for freedom of speech and expression in Malaysia consisting of Aliran, Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), Knowledge and Rights with Young People Through Safer Spaces (KRYSS) and Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram).

ENOUGH DISTRACTIONS PH, SHOW US YOUR NEW PLAN

Press statement by Kua Kia Soong, SUARAM Adviser 10 Dec 2018

Since their victory at the last elections, PH has been feeding us an endless stream of distractions while not providing us an alternative political economic and socio-cultural plan that is different from BN’s. First, they put forward the mythical 1 trillion debt mountain that was used as an excuse to cut public expenditure. Well, Moody’s 2018 figures for Malaysia’s debt put it at 50.8% of our GDP and not the 85% claimed by the government. Then they continue to bash the last Prime Minister even though the big kleptocrat is already in the hands of the AG Chambers and the courts. And with the MCA reduced to just one MP in Parliament, why are they being treated as if they pose such a threat to PH?

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS DETRIMENTAL TO RACE RELATIONS?

Press statement by Kua Kia Soong SUARAM Adviser 10 Dec 2018

On August 7 this year, while writing to deflate the view by the PH government that there was no money to run local government elections, I already anticipated Dr Mahathir’s statement yesterday that local government elections would be detrimental to race relations. His reasoning was that since most of the ethnic Chinese were residing in the urban areas, while a majority of the Malays were in rural areas, if local council elections were held, this would see urbanites governed by one race, while another race would be managing the rural areas.

Postponing Human Rights and Empowering Politics of Hate

SUARAM regrets the turn of events which resulted in the postponement of the Human Rights Day celebration organized by SUHAKAM and the suggestions that the celebration was a counter-rally against the Anti-ICERD rally organized by the opposition party.