COMMENT | Lately, there have been a lot of discussions on Pakatan Harapan’s promise to recognise UEC or Unified Examination Certificate (UEC), which is issued to the graduates of Chinese independent high schools.

Currently, the UEC is not recognised by the government of Malaysia as an entry into public higher education institutions because the education system adopted by the Chinese independent high schools do not use Bahasa Malaysia as the medium of instruction, thus deemed as not fulfilling the country’s needs to foster national unity, which is in line with the principles of Rukunegara.

The UEC however, is recognised by Malaysian private higher education institutions as well as many universities overseas.

At the moment, while many Chinese counterparts of our society are urging the government to recognise the UEC, we have a great number of non-Chinese community members who are dead against it, threatening to hold protests if the government goes ahead to fulfil its manifesto.

Being a product of sekolah kebangsaan myself and having sent both of my children to sekolah kebangsaan, I admit I don’t know much about UEC and the education system as practised by the Chinese independent high schools in our country.

However, the more I read into the matter pertaining UEC, one question which keeps popping into my head is: if the parents who had sent their children to these Chinese independent high schools had done so because they did not have faith in our national education system, and upon the belief that these independent schools can provide their children with better education, why then are they making a big U-turn and demanding the government to recognise the UEC in order to apply for a place in our local public universities?

In other words, when our public schools are not good enough for them, what makes them think our public universities would be?...