COMMENT | Our schools will offer optional courses in Thai, Khmer and Vietnamese – on top of Mandarin and Tamil – to promote multilingualism.

Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek, who announced this yesterday, was correct in saying, “Asean strength lies in its cultural, linguistic and traditional diversity.

“To harness this, we must prepare our youth to be multilingual, adaptable and culturally competent.”

Substitute the word Asean for Malaysia and we have the perfect reason to maintain our Chinese and Tamil schools.

Yet some “nationalists” have long demanded that our vernacular schools be shut down, with the most recent call in February from an Umno Youth exco member.

I've always wondered why ex-PM Mahathir Mohamad’s Look East Policy encouraged us to look far, far away to learn the Japanese “arigato” but not the Mandarin “xie xie” right here at home? Both words mean “thank you”.

Of course, many netizens jumped on Fadhlina, asking why...