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Greatest disappointment that Najib failed to “walk the talk” with concrete action whether on recognition of Unified Examination Certificate or institutionalize government funding of Independent Chinese Secondary Schools

Yesterday, the Chinese press gave front page headline treatment to the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s message for the 90th anniversary celebrations of the Chong Hwa Independent High School in Kuala Lumpur, but this has been replaced with deep disappointment and sadness that the Prime Minister has again failed to “walk the talk” like his “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now” motto, his pledge to front-line transparency and to combat corruption.
 
Najib’s message for the Chong Hwa Independent High School 90th anniversary celebrations souvenir publication stands out as the best message ever given by any Prime Minister in the past five decades, crediting the Chinese Independent Secondary Schools as “important national assets” not only of the Chinese in Malaysia but of the country and extolling their contributions to nation building particularly in human resource development.
 
This has raised sky-high expectations that Najib would announce concrete actions to “walk the talk” of his message and it was a great disappointment all round that he attended the Chong Hwa Independent High School 90th anniversary dinner last night completely empty-handed.
 
There was neither announcement of recognition of the Unified Examination Certificate which is recognized by reputable universities worldwide or concrete action by the federal government to institutionalize government support and funding for the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools despite the Prime Minister’s acknowledgement of their being “national assets” and important contribution to nation-building.
 
This is a major failure of the KPI of the Najib administration – failing to “walk the talk” to synchronise what it says publicly with what the government is doing actually.
 
It will most regrettable if all this is just for propaganda to score political points without any political will to translate them into government policies and practices.
 
The Cabinet should convene a special meeting to translate into action what the Prime Minister said in his message for the Chong Hwa Independent High School 90th anniversary celebrations, as Malaysians do not want the Prime Minister  just to give “beautiful” messages but to translate words into action.

47 Replies to “Greatest disappointment that Najib failed to “walk the talk” with concrete action whether on recognition of Unified Examination Certificate or institutionalize government funding of Independent Chinese Secondary Schools”

  2. “The rise of China will change the meaning of time. The US was born modern and without a memory because it was European settlers, not Americans, who created it. So there’s always a transience about Americans, who have a deep insecurity about themselves…Whereas the first thing a Chinese likes to say is: “We are the product of a 5,000-year civilisation.” Martin Jacques

    I am quoting the above to pre-empt any nasty comments from cintanegara or Kasim Amat about how bad or useless or irrelevant Chinese education is. Martin’s comment about the transcience of the Americans apply equally to the Malays who have this deep insecurity within themselves too.

    Now that the UMNO president is asking the Malays themselves to learn Mandarin, what will his machais like cintanegara say ?

  4. Jib has decided to follow Prof Khoo’s advice and close all the Independent Chinese Secondary Schools because as Khoo claims, this type of schools could not produce any Nobel Prize winners, whereas the Sekolah Kebangsaan stream has produced Malaysia’s Great Angkasawan

  5. as to nr’s visit, a pure show.

    we want:

    1. keep the chinese medium primary and secondary schools and no interference to their curriculum.

    2. recognize the unified exam cert.as local university entrance and application to public scholarship with equal treatment.

    3. recognize all degrees of reputable china universities.

    4. allow for formation of new chinese medium primary schools and chinese independent schools when needs arise.

  9. Malaysian education has come to a cross road. During the 1970 and 1980 many students opt to join the SMK and only handful will chose to study in the Chinese independent school, but this time around the trend was reversed in totality. This year Chong Hwa Independent School has 1200 applicants from various standard six student sit for its entry examination ( for those students who achieved an average of 80 marks in the std five and first half std six need to six for its entry examination). Out of this 1200 only about 400 was selected ie those who pass its entry examination mark. Those students who has achieved an average of 80 marks will get accepted without sitting for the entry examination. Each year the demand for a place in the Independent school is increasing. The competition for a place will be fierce in the years to come.

    Why the demand for independent school? One obvious answer is the losing faith in SMK standard of education.

    Let look at the English PMR paper this year that was sat by my son and compare to UEC English paper that my son also sat for during the Form 3. One will see the different in the two standards.

    As far as the government did not put its efforts to upgrade the national education syllabus and the standards of the teaching staffs, all out students will be suffer and thus the country will suffer and will have to pay greatly in time to come. And this problem is imminent.

    The next question, why the government did not support the Chinese Independent school? It was not that the government did not know its contribution as can be seen from all the praises Najib has said in its speech. It was simply because Chinese independent school has only one ethic group of Chinese students that form its population and the government always has the myth that if only one ethic of student excel then this will create an imbalance in the society and the certain ethic will lose out. But this was not the case. As we can see now most of the Local U graduates are not competitive and they are not ready for employment and need further training upon graduation from University.

    This was what the Chinese parent did not want to see their children to lose out and end up with out job when they graduated from University. This was the main reason that more and more parent will send their children to independent school as far as the national school did not up the mark.

    Given a choice, many will not wish to send their children to independent school because those students are taking double syllabus, one national and one UEC. The pressure is simply to great but many leave with out choice knowing that going to national school may not well equipment their children with the necessary standard of education.

    If the government wish to see the disappear of Chinese Independent school, it is not by passing law to ban it but upgrade the national education to the standard that we used to have in the early 60sand 70s. If the standard is national school is there many will shy away from independent school. But as it is now, the Chinese Independent school not only here to stay but will get stronger and stronger.

    Next year, this Chong Hwa Independent School will have to raise its entry average mark higher than 80 to get and automatic acceptable enrolment. More will choice Chinese Independent Schools all over Malaysia.

  10. Yeah, maybe cintanegara has chopped down the rambutan tree out of anger. We can imagine how confused the village idiot must be after Najis tells them to learn mandarin and Mamakthir tells them to master English.

  11. But really, LKS. Dr Rojak has a valid point (expressed in another thread). He is concerned. Whilst the present no-merit system is bad, he does not wish to be caught in a pre-NEP scenario, either. My knowledge of the pre-NEP scenes is at best hazy. So I cannot comment much about it here. Be that as it may, it is my gut feeling that pre-NEP scenes will never be re-played. The whole background and setting of today simply do not permit a reversion to the past – not completely anyway, even if it happens. But that is not Dr Rojak’s fear, I believe. Instead, he wants to be certain that the reversion will not take place; and there is nothing (in the form of policies or otherwise) to tell him that it wont happen when pakatan takes over. GE13 is not too far away. It is time to formulate clear and comprehensive policies. Pakatan (esp DAP) does have a clear stand on many issues of national import. Compile them. Publish them for feedbacks and comments. And then fine-tune them.

  12. Continuation of Comment #4:

    Why can’t the Great Professor Khoo win a Nobel Prize by himself first, instead of blaming other Malaysians for being unable to do so? For instance, he can win the prize for Peace for 2010 by going to Waziristan and urging Osama to surrender to the Americans.

  13. I just fail to grasp why the fuss about the government not helping the so-called “independent” schools. As the names suggest, by being “independent” it should be independent. So why expect aids? I would love to see the new day whereby there is only one type of school in M’sia as suggested by Prof. Khoo recently. That would surely sounds nice ….1 Malaysia,1 school, 1…. the list is unlimited.

  14. When we show our respect for other living things….they respond with respect for us….We dare defend our rights….but keep on questioning other’s supremacy…Don’t we think they have the right too to defend their superiority?

  17. http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/119874

    ‘…However, this does not mean that PAS had compromised its religious ideals, said its spiritual leader and Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat.

    It is the religious duty of every Muslim to ensure that the laws of God, or Syariah law, are implemented on earth.

    Given that this does not go down well with political leaders in a multi-racial society, Nik Aziz has offered to explain the PAS stand to DAP…’

    I wonder how DAP would respond to this. I hope they do not emulate MCA and GERAKAN in their responses to UMNO.

    Rather than embracing MCA’s and GERAKAN’s ‘negotiating spirit’ in dealing with the demands of UMNO, I hope DAP will insist that the rejection of Islamic theocracy in Malaysia is a non-negotiable principle in the PR coalition.

  18. I know the Chinese news paper will start making headlines for what Datuk Najib said and they must be feeling very proud of their language. I would like to urge the Chinese not to be overjoyed because Bahasa Malaysia is still the National language. Beside Bahasa Malaysia, English is more important and should come before Mandarin. Learning Mandarin maybe good for our Malay who wish to understand the Chinese more. I am not against it but it would only be fair if the people in China also start to learn Bahasa Malaysia. Everything has to be two ways and if at all, this has to be planned step by step as our students are already learning both Bahasa Malaysia and English, which is stressed enough for them. Again this should be a personal preference because not everyone in the world like to learn Mandarin. I hope the Chinese community not to get too excited with this.

  19. The average Chinese in Malaysia really do not care too much whether the government will provide aids to Independent school as it can survive anyway. Let talk about the pen-derive inventor who was a product of Chinese Independent school, and subsequently made his day in Taiwan. Now let argue on the other side of the story. If UEC is recognized by government, will this guy venture to Taiwan? Or he may just another half cooked graduate from local U?

    Pen-Drive success story should thank the government for not recognized UEC. That has indirectly lead this talented guy venture to Taiwan. Secondly, if you care to read his story of success, this Pen-Drive guy also own his success to the environment that Taiwan can provide him ie the research and the availability of venture capital that has provide the source to groom his talent. Of course he should also thankful for the child hood hardship that GOD has given him to inspired him to his great success.

    Look at it. Najib also know very well that Chinese really not care too much of the government’s aids, he just play along to his politic and make some stupid fellow syiok a bit.

    Forget about Najib. He is playing politic that he brought along OTK, LTL, WKS & KSK to please the Chinese. He is trying to vow back the Chinese for BN nothing else. Forget about the emphasis of Mandarin, everybody know its important and we need no PM to remind us. Mat Salleh know its important and has since put into action and learn it. So Malaysia still try to retard its growth as its own peril.

  20. Kasim Amat: Nobody is forcing anybody to learn Mandarin.
    Asking ppl in China to learn BM? Hello, we r talking abt Malaysia, not China. Dun equate Chinese Malaysians with Chinese from China.
    No one (except UMNO guys who r so afraid BM will lose its status) are disputing BM is our national language.

  21. Walk the talk? Oh no no no. He cant. He will surely trip and fall. You see there are just too many slogans and promises laying around and about him and both his feet. A lot of them are collections really. Still. PM he is; wade and waddle about them he must. Careful there. Berlusconi’s bloody nose does not make a pretty sight does it? And we dont want jib to look like Berlusconi, do we?

  25. It’s pretty ironic for NR to praise the chinese schools for contributing the advancement and development of education in malaysia but short of recognizing its UEC and supporting funds for its developemt. Why is it so difficult for NR to say yes to UEC whereas university in Australia,China ,Canada and the US could say yes.Are we not ashame to not recognizing our very own products. Now I know why,most malaysians don’t buy protron cars though they said its not a bad product. It’s following the PM leading a good example,saying its (chinese education) is good but not good enough for recognizing it. I think NR is afraid if recognizing the UEC,the effect would hurt the ketuanan melayu ultimate goal for umnoputras using the malays as a shield .This is umnoputras hollow aim,ultimately,the malays would be left far behind.The american,australians,europeans. are pretty fast learning chinese(mandarin) as they know China in less than a decade from now on would be an economic super power.NR and umnoputras and people like kassim amat should know the trend and follow where it is moving. If Umno stayed the cause and the malays allowed to be fooled by umnoputras and people like kassim amat,then when regression hits them hard,they have only themselves to blame.Because by then umnoputras and people like kassim amat would be living extravagantly in some wonderful land where people there only speak english and chinese.

  27. Everyone around the world is looking towards China these days. And that is the exact reason why Najis invited Hu Jin Tao for an official visit to Malaysia recently. Under such circumstances, even Mat Sallehs are rushing to learn Chinese Language. But what Prof. Khoo said in the newspapers truly defamed Chinese education in Malaysia. Has Prof. himself ever attended a Chinese school to give such a comment?

  28. Khoo is a baba he is just like what a cantonese say ‘ Chinese toh yee keh ‘ Ask Khoo why the Japanese copy from the Americans while the Koreans also copying from the Japanese . Remember,Khoo, Historian can not copy anything cos history are facts… u hv no chance but unfortunately many history topics in the national school has been changed…..is it worse than copying.

  29. Don’t get too excited lah
    Just becos NR was d first PM 2 visit a Chinese independent secondary school
    N NR spoke some nice things abt Chinese independent secondary schools
    Remember MMK also on n off spoke some nice things abt nonMalays
    N MMK openly hentam Malays regarding their laziness n dependence on tongkak
    Show show n play play je lar
    Now MMK admitted that he is a racist n d founding president of d racist party, UB

  30. If Najis is at all serious about promoting Chinese education and encouraging the Malays to take up Chinese, then he has to build more CHINESE SCHOOLS, otherwise where the hell are they going to learn Chinese? If that is so, MCA can disappear from the political scene of Malaysia forever! Why? Because they have always been FIGHTING for the Chinese and Chinese education! They can now “DA BAO” and go home!

  31. MCA leaders should stop dreaming everyday to become party President, but do the follow-up work to exert pressure on Najib to do something since the latter admitted that Chinese Independent Secondary Schools are “important national assets”.

  32. Godfather :
    is. Martin’s comment about the transcience of the Americans apply equally to the Malays who have this deep insecurity within themselves too.

    Actually you are wrong Godfather. The Malays have a rich and deep history dating longer than the Americans. Malay civilization originates from the time of Srivijaya empire that is believed to have been around since the 7th century more than a thousand years ago.

    The ‘Malays’ that have the insecurity problems are the recent migrant Tamil muslim ‘Malays’ that are unable to trace their origins back to this Malay roots. That is why they constantly hide behind Islam and tightly couple the notion of Malay with Islam so that they can more easily pass as ‘Malays’.

    The Srivijaya empire was a Hindu/Buddhist empire and originally the majority of Malays were Hindus or Buddhists. The Malays only converted in large numbers to Islam later sometime in the 13th century during the time of the Melaka sultanate. Even then, there were still populations of Hindu malays then.

    Malay history actually dates back further than is taught in sejarah. But, the reason why we don’t study the Srivijaya empire in detail (the origins of Malay civilization) is because UMNO does not recognize non-muslim Malays as ‘Malays’. They prefer the Malays to think that their civilization only began with the Melaka Sultanate.

  33. “Why do we fool ourselves an UMNO top leader can even be seen helping the Chinese schools?”. Bigjoe.

    You are dead right.Najis is only sloganeering for the 13th GE to win back as many as the Chinese votes he lost at the last one,and this 13th GE would be expected to be brought forward not only because of a likely improved economic conditions world wide but also to thwart the ambition of Muhyiddin.

  34. Sometimes, people forget the fundamentals; educating one’s children is a major part of parenting though the parents must have faith in the school first. When we were in schools based on very different environment, parents did not have any qualm of the type of teachers who were generally respected. Today, because of political slants, this has driven many parents especially among some non- Chinese speaking parents to send their children to the Chinese-type primary schools. Those in power should ask Why?.
    It is noted that some 20% of these students is non-Chinese. There must be a good reason; in spite of what Prof. Khoo had said! In fact, I think the Gomen owes it to the Chinese Community to increase such schools by the same factor; after all it is meant for the Community at this level. Of course, to the majority of BUMIs, the burden of their children education is the concern of the Gomen. Such perception in life cannot be faulted in our environment because ‘Tongkat Ali’ is the expected norm in life.
    No matter the number of As we churn out, it is only ‘song'[ as in Hokkien] for the news. As I have noted, to benchmark our SPM standard, a registry of all 12 As and above should be kept and traced as to their performances and career developments. How many of them really stand the test of time and the demands of the society?
    We have lived by sloganeering all the past 25years and it would appear that many die-hards have indeed believed that we can conquer the world just by shouting!! This blog itself shows!! Until we stop all the sloganeering and dreaming, we are rolling towards the land of Mugabe, the twin of our TDM!!

  35. This is the trouble with BTN brain-washed Malaysians. They thought that Malaysia is better than any county in the world. Some even claimed that we are as great as the US. Some better still said that China is 20 years behind Malaysia. What a frog-in-a-well mentality after being brained washed by BTN and the racist UMNO. China has put a man in space. Malaysia has put a tourist in space. China has nuclear bomb. Malaysia has c4. China has submarine built in its soil. Malaysia has submarine built in France with RM500,000,000.00 commission. China can put its own satellite in space. Malaysia needs France to put its satellite in space. China built its missile that can travel half the world. China is capable of building its own commercial plane. Malaysia has to buy planes from Boeing. China has world top universities. Malaysia has world ranked lower than 200 university. The list goes on and on. Yet some people in Malaysia believe that Malaysia is 20 years ahead of China and is as good as America.

  36. Hi waterfrontcoolie,Umno/Bn admin, would not want to support and help build more chinese primary ,secondary and college university schools because they are afraid one day malay schools,colleges and universities would be half emptied. Look,malay students now comprising 20-30 % of chinese primary schools,and a decade later it would likely shoot up to 50% especially when China becomes both super political and economic power of the world.This would defeat its purpose of 1national school for all. like what prof.Khoo has suggested.I think NR just made used of him to say it.you know most professors. are good in academic only.They don’t know much about what’s exactly going around them.

  39. Katdog,
    You are right to say that the Melaka is intimately associated to the Srivijaya empire in Palembang Sumatra since its founding in the fourteenth century is by a fleeing prince fleeing from a Javanese enemy.That prince is Parameswara who is definitely Hindu who started the Melaka Sultanate but for some obvious reason he is Sultan Iskandar Shah in the modern version of Malaysian history and
    Malaysia’s history taught currently in schools are based on its modern version which is an attempt to expunge the influence of the 2 great civilizations of the world India and China.
    Goebbel,Hitler’s PR manager once said,”When you repeat a lie often enough,it becomes the truth.” How true it is!The link below is what Dr.Lee Kam Hing,a former prof of history in UM in Singapore has to say.
    http://ecofrencommunity.blog.com/2009/11/15/who-is-the-actual-tetuan/

  41. ///I wonder how DAP would respond to this/// – Lee Wang Yen.

    Whichever response will yield no positive outcome.

    Hence other than just insisting that DAP’s core ideology is secular pluralism I don’t see DAP’s leaders (Karpal excepted) challenge PAS’s position, in part for reasons of political expedience of not upsetting the Pakatan Rakyat’s applecart and in part due to the sheer futility of debate on a divisive matter of which matter of which there is no common point from which, ideological wise, to even start the negotiation.

    Necessarily DAP’s secular stance will be defensive because if it believes in ‘live and let live, believe and let believe’ it will accord this right to PAS’s leaders and members.

    The converse is however not true – for it is PAS’s mission to propagate and aggressively facilitate the realisation of the theocratic state.

    Which is why in a contest between a defensive and an aggressive ideology, it is PAS’s belief that ultimate victory is destined to be theirs to attain.

    From perspectives of PAS’s Islamists, the two different paths – secular pluralism and Islamic Theocracy – will never meet; choosing one means rejecting the other….

    Secularism is premised on separating religion from affairs of life whether public or private, and individual is left on his own to decide on his own his religious or non religious beliefs, and the State plays the hands off neutral role of a non interfering referee whose only role at regfulation is to ensure players of different faiths have their private space to engage in religious expressions without undue enroachments from the rest of other faiths.

    Freedom of Religion means exactly that – the provision of level playing field for all without favour from the State itself.

    Whereas from PAS’s angle the laws of God whether pertaining to worship, the relations between men and women, dietary habits etc. are compulsory and must be embraced in every aspect as a way of life, private and public in entirety (adin), and it is faithful’s compulsory obligation to make sure that the laws of the Almighty are implemented on earth for all in a state established in His honour.

    For these reasons there’s no conceivable way for Muslims to be attracted to DAP and there is little by way of bridge between the two diametrically opposed systems of beliefs, no matter what President Obama tries to do to promote understanding and dialogue.

  42. AhPek:

    Yap Ah Loy simply occupied land that didn’t belong to him, built a Chinese squatter colony, and cut down all the rambutan trees which deprived the Malays of their rambutans. We are going to get Utusan to start a campaign to debunk Yap Ah Loy as the founder of KL.

  44. Let’s be fair to the nincompoops – they are kinda shy to say that the land belongs to them. They said that the rambutan tree in no-man’s land was actually closer to their houses, as compared to Yap Ah Loy’s house. How dare Yap Ah Loy come and demand a fair share of the fruits !

  45. And if you were to go further ask the Orang Asli to ask the African,the African would tell you the land belongs to the African since from the latest theory about evolution of man,the “Out of Africa” theory is the most likely explanation scientifically.
    Two pieces of the human genome are useful in deciphering human history:mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome.These two parts of the genome are not shuffled about by evolutiion and they are passed down intact.According to this theory,all 6.7 billion people have inherited the same Mitochondria from one woman who lived in Africa about 160,000 years ago.She has been named the Mitochondria Eve.All men have inherited their Y chromosomes from a man who lived 60,000 years ago also in Afica.He is the Y-chromosome Adam.According to both genetic and fossil evidence,the archaic
    Homo sapiens evolved to anatomically modern humans in Africa between 100,000 to 200,000 years ago,and started leaving Africa some 60,000 years ago with mitochondria DNA from Mitochondria Eve and Y-chromosome from Adam Y-chromosome!
    So if both of you, cintanegara and Kasim Amat are so syiok sendiri in claiming that this land belongs to you,go ask the African!

  46. #41…for these reasons there’s no conceivable way for muslims to be attracted to DAP….Jeffrey. Yep in theory but in practice,I think certainly a large portion of the muslims population in the country do not subscribe to islamic theocracy .Time has changed,poeple’s thinking too has changed,even people’s thought of the Almigthy has changed in this modern fast moving globlised world. Everyone is struggling for economical survival ,it’s likely a substantial amount of people might not make it. A time will come when most people including the muslims in particular in Malaysia would be in an catastrophic situation,and where would you think they are going, mosques or going to the party which could offer them some relieves. You know,obligation to faith is one thing,economic survival is another,and between the two,most would choose the later when facing economic hardship.And at the rate of these umnoputras squandering and siphoning off thousands of billion ringgit every year away from this land,it’s only a matter of short time,the muslims/malays would face this catastrophic disaster.Liken Tang Siew Ping said black cat or white cat is not the problem,what’s important is the one catches the rats.Hopefully the cat that catches the rat is the DAP.

  47. just want to bring to yb the attention of the creation of a facebook group that collect fans for the support of recognition of uec. the group was created just a 3 days ago and successfully collected close to 10,000 fans in the cyberspace.

    http://www.facebook.com/pages/shi-wan-ren-yao-qiu-cheng-ren-du-zhong-tong-kao-wen-ping-zhi-du-bo-kuan-du-zhong-jiao-yu/207841725998?ref=nf&__a=1&_fb_iframe_path=%2Fpages%2Fb3fc6e86%2F207841725998#/pages/shi-wan-ren-yao-qiu-cheng-ren-du-zhong-tong-kao-wen-ping-zhi-du-bo-kuan-du-zhong-jiao-yu/207841725998

    i hope that they are doing it with good intention. they are many comments and suggestion.

    i have a few worries:
    1. that someone with bad intents is behind this.
    2. that someone with bad intents will abuse this. lots of the fans join with their real name and real identity.
    3. that no one could provide leadership to this group of young and old chinese independent school students.

    hope that you can look into this if you have time. i do not want what suppose to be a good place for forum turns into a tool for abusive.

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