KUALA LUMPUR: Gerakan has proposed for an amendment of two articles in the Education Act 1996 to protect vernacular schools which use native language as medium of instruction.
Its vice-president, Dr Dominic Lau Hoe Chai said the amendment was imperative, owing to the content of the act which was found to be inconsistent with the Malaysian Education Development Plan (MEDP) from 2013 to 2015.
He said the act did not contain a guarantee to maintain vernacular schools, merely stating the national language as medium of instruction in the national education system.
“Whereas, pursuant to Chapter 7, Malaysian Education Development Plan 2013-2015, national-type Chinese (SJKC) and Tamil (SJKT) allow the use of their mother tongue as medium of instruction,” he told reporters here yesterday.
Another amendment was Article 17 (1) of the Education Act 1996 which gives full power to the education minister to provide exemption to any school to use languages, other than the national language as medium of instruction.
“In this regard, we propose that any clause stating ‘any educational institutions exempted by the minister of education’ be removed, as we do not want to see only minister having full authority to decide over this matter,” he said.
He said there was a need for dialogue with relevant parties and other political and non-governmental organisations to discuss the proposal before submitting to the ministry. — Bernama