Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Party Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, at the DAP Education Bill 1990 Ceramah at Wah Chai Association Hall in Seremban on Tuesday, 5th June at 8 pm
Anwar said that he would give DAP MPs a briefing on the Education Bill 1990 after it has been finalized.
When I met the Education Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, in Kuala Lumpur at Pusat Islam last Friday during the lying-in-state ceremony of the late Tun Hussein Onn, Malaysia’s third Prime Minister, I asked him why he had not responded to my fax two weeks earlier asking for an immediate and urgent briefing for DAP MPs on the Education Bill 1990.
Anwar said that he would give DAP MPs a briefing on the Education Bill 1990 when it has been finalized.
The reason I sent the fax to the Education Minister for an immediate an urgent briefing for DAP MPs on the Education Bill 1990 was because MPs should be given ample time to study the new education law before they are required to debate and pass it.
As of tonight, Parliament would meet in five days’ time, and there is no advance copy of the Education Bill, or at least of the major issues and portions which Anwar said had already been agreed by the six-man Cabinet Committee on Education, for the Members of Parliament.
If before Anwar Ibrahim to retract his directive to State Education Directors, headmasters and teachers to be the political spokesmen for the Barisan Nasional on the Education Bill 1990
Call on Anwar Ibrahim to retract his directive to State Education Directors, headmasters and teachers to be the political spokesmen for the Barisan Nasional on the Education Bill 1990
What is most shocking is that while MPs are denied access to information about the Education Bill 1990, the Education Minister has instructed State Education Directors, headmasters and teachers to form state-level information committees to rebut criticisms about the Education Bill 1990.
If State Education Directors, headmasters and teachers can rebut criticisms about the Education Bill 1990, it must mean that they have been given access to information about the Education Bill which is denied to all Members of Parliament.
This is clearly most undemocratic, showing that the Education Minister has no respect whatsoever for the institution of Parliament and for all the Members of Parliament in the country. It is also a serious abuse of his powers as Education Minister to force government servants like the State Education Directors, headmasters and teachers to become the political tools of the Barisan Nasional in the national controversy over the Education Bill 1990.
It is Anwar who is ‘politicising’ the Education Bill 1990, to the extent that he is also ‘politicising’ the State Education Directors, headmasters and teachers.
I call on Anwar to shield the State Education Directors, headmasters and teachers from the political controversy and to immediately retract his directive to State Education Directors, headmasters and teachers to become the ‘political spokesmen’ of the Barisan Nasional on the Education Bill 1990, and disband all state-level information committees for this purpose.
Gerakan blaming the MCA for ‘single-aidedly creating a stalemate’ on the abolition of Boards of Management of fully-aided Chinese primary schools
In the past few days, Gerakan leaders like its President, Datuk Dr. Lim Keng Yaik, and his Political Secretary, Dr. Kang Chin Sang, have been publicly putting the blame on the MCA for ‘single-handedly creating a stalemate’ in the Barisan Nasional over the abolition of Boards of Management of ‘fully-aided’ Chinese primary schools.
The Gerakan and its national leaders have been guilty of a ‘two-faced’ tactics on the issue of the Boards of Management of Chinese primary schools.
In a policy document on the Education Bill 1990, the Gerakan publicity called for the repeal of Section 26(A) of the Education Act 1961 which gives the Minister of Education the power to abolish the Boards of Management of Chinese primary schools.
However, in January 1972, it was Datuk Dr. Lim Keng Yaik who was the loudest and strongest advocate in Parliament of the new Section 26(A) to be inserted into the Education Act 1961.
It is therefore not surprising that the Gerakan leaders, like Keng Yaik and Chin Sang, have taken an ambivalent attitude on the issue of the Boards of Management of Chinese primary schools, supporting the division of the thousand-odd Chinese primary schools into two categories, one to be known as ‘fully-aided’ and the other ‘partially-aided’ depending on whether the school land is government or private.
This classification is a creation of the last one or two years, for in the past 28 years since the enactment of the Education Act 1961, all Chinese primary schools had been classified as ‘fully-aided’.
With such a classification, the Barisan Nasional government is ready to take the first step to abolish Boards of Management of Chinese primary schools.
Call on Gerakan to declare its real stand on the repeal of Sections 21(2) and 26(A) of the Education Act 1961
What is even more surprising is that in his speech in Johore Bahru on Sunday, Dr. Kang had said that Anwar Ibrahim was now facing pressure from the Malay ground on the repeal of Section 21(2) of the 1961 Education Act.
Dr. Kang seems to be preparing the ground of Anwar Ibrahim to renege from the Barisan Nasional pledge in the 1986 general elections to repeal Section 21(2) of the Education Act 1961 in the first meeting of the new Parliament, or for the enactment of various provisions in the new Education Bill 1990 which will be detrimental to the aspirations of the people for a fair education system, including their legitimate demands on Chinese education and Chinese primary schools.
From the statements and speeches of Gerakan leaders, I get the distinct impression that the Gerakan has made a dramatic change in its stand on the Education Act, and in particular on Chinese education and Chinese primary schools.
In the first place, Gerakan leaders do not seem to be insisting that the Barisan Nasional government honours its 1986 general elections pledge to repeal Section 21(2) of the Education Act 1961 before the next general elections. The Gerakan leaders seem to have taken a stand that the Barisan Nasional Government again promise to repeal Section 21(2) in the next general elections!
Secondly, I also get the impression that Gerakan leaders have given up its stand on the repeal of Section 26(A) of the Education Act 1961, as stated in the Gerakan policy document on the Education Bill 1990.
For this reason, there is a need for the Gerakan leaders to declare their deal stand on the repeal of Sections 21(2) and 26(A) of the Education Act 1961.