MCA Youth today lambasted Deputy Education Minister P Kamalanathan’s remark that the non-recognition of the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) was because of national sovereignty as “erroneous and unreasonable”, accusing it of getting the Chinese party into trouble.

“Such an explanation is totally absurd, has created confusion among the Chinese community and has landed MCA, (despite all our party’s efforts) in trouble,” said the movement’s secretary-general Leong Kim Soon in a statement.

MCA Youth said that the deputy minister had relied on scripted answers provided by officials in claiming in the Dewan Rakyat answer that the government’s refusal to recognise the UEC was due to issues of “national sovereignty”, and has failed to comprehend the actual situation on attempts to gain recognition for the examination.

The movement noted that both MCA president Liow Tiong Lai and deputy president Wee Ka Siong had raised the issue in the cabinet meeting on Friday to which, the cabinet reaffirmed its earlier decision that negotiations will continue for the recognition of UEC.

“Thus the ‘national sovereignty’ remark by P Kamalanathan are inaccurate,” argued MCA Youth as the process was still ongoing.

MCA Youth noted that the MCA president had urged Kamalanathan to retract his remark after the deputy education minister published his Parliamentary reply on his Facebook whilst elaborating that it was “the government’s collective response on this matter”, although the movement argued that there was no such “collective response”.

The youth wing added that it is ridiculous for Kamalanathan to uphold the reply prepared by ministry officials when the contents were erroneous.

The UEC reply for the Dewan Rakyat, said MCA Youth, was contrary to the cabinet’s actual position, urging that the ministry take the appropriate disciplinary action against the officials in question so that such anomalies are not repeated.

On Tuesday, Kamalanathan cited that national sovereignty is one of the reasons the government does not recognise the UEC, adding that it was the collective cabinet stand.

“For now, the government cannot recognise the UEC because it is not based on our national curriculum and education philosophy.This is the reality we have to accept, because it has to do with national sovereignty and interests,” he told the Dewan Rakyat during question time.

The deputy minister’s remark caused a flurry of criticism to emerge.