Josh Hong's vision for One Language, one nation? deserves to be commended in light of our on-going national public debate to achieve an ultimate compromise for a universal lingua franca in order to move forward to meet the complexity of globalisation.

As a senior citizen of pre-Merdeka era, I was actively involved in the promotion of the 'Bahasa Kebangsaan' campaign in the early 60s. I believe my portrait still stands tall in the archives of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

I do take pride in my past involvement and contributions towards the government's search for a national identity way back then and in further enhancing the usage of our Bahasa Melayu as the Bahasa Kebangsaan or national language.

I fully agree with Hong that as times are a-changing in the world of international interactions and networking, our education deliverables need to be revamped. We live in a world of realities and can no longer be too nationalistic to promote any sectoral communal nationalism or identity.

We must have the correct attitude and vision to move the nation forward. While we all have the right to preserve our national heritage, including our rich Malaysian multiculturalism, in the post-Merdeka era, we should now blend them all into one identity.

Believe me, the government is moving fast towards this goal and the rakyat needs to have a positive attitude and mindset to move beyond the barriers of human and personal constraints.

In this important aspect, both the ministries of education and higher education will have challenging roles in terms of carrying out the aspirations of the people as envisaged by our government's educational policies.

I urge both our honourable ministers to cast political agendas aside and to think out of the box so that people will not be confused with the changes in our general education policies as well as the continuing usage of English as an international tool to go global.

To all Malaysians, including parliamentarians and grassroots politicians, it is my hope that for national interests, they should open up their minds to support the continuing efforts of the government to capture the essence of our human capital.

Lastly, I wish to quote from the Education Review : 'What is done in our classrooms today will be reflected in the successes or failures of our civilisation tomorrow.'

So, I urge both the education ministers to take note of Hong's well-written article and to dare to take up the challenge to move our education policies forward for positive results on a long-term basis.