Barisan Nasional component party leaders will hold a closed door meeting with Chinese educationists in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow to look into their demands for mother-tongue education rights.

Education minister Musa Mohamed and chairpersons of the various BN component party education bureaus are expected to attend the meeting.

The Chinese educationists involved are members of Dong Jiao Zong (DJZ), an umbrella body that combines the United Chinese School Committees' Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong) and the United Chinese School Teachers' Association of Malaysia (UCSTA or Jiao Zong).

An informed source told malaysiakini the meeting is expected to be held at the education ministry in Damansara, Kuala Lumpur or at the New Era College in Kajang.

Speculations are rife that this development is meant to satisfy Chinese educationists demands ahead of coming party elections. BN component parties MCA and Gerakan are scheduled to hold their elections this year.

When contacted, representatives from MCA, Gerakan and the Chinese lobby groups remained tight-lipped about the meeting.

Some said the meeting was a normal event as both MCA and Gerakan are involved in educational projects with the lobby groups.

MCA Youth has a joint project with DJZ to train primary school teachers while Gerakan is involved in a fund-raising drive for the privately-run New Era College.

Heated issue

Others however, said the closed-door meeting could be seen as extraordinary as it is to iron-out the Chinese education issue which became a political hot potato after the Chinese community lobbied for their rights to an education in their mother tongue.

The lobbyists have been airing their grievances through the opposition coalition Barisan Alternatif as they felt that both the MCA and Gerakan had been ineffective in championing their cause.

Observers believe the Chinese education issue was well-exploited to convince voters to elect Keadilans candidate Saifuddin Nasution Ismail during the Lunas by-election in 2000.

The lobby groups also helped Keadilan garner an increase in Chinese votes  though incumbent MCA managed to retain the seat  in the just concluded Indera Kayanan by-election on Jan 19.

On Jan 11, a day after nomination day for that by-election, DJZ publicly called on residents of Subang Jaya and USJ to clearly recognise the intrinsic property of Vision schools in order to safeguard the Chinese primary education system from being chipped away.

The successful opening of the USJ15 Vision School may be an excuse the government to no longer build Chinese primary schools (SJKCs) in the nation in future, said the group, in a press statement.

The group said it fully supported the residents' petition, which carried more than 20,000 signatures, to convert the USJ15 Vision School into a traditional Chinese primary school (SJKC).

Pressing school shortage

They said this was part of efforts to address shortcomings in Chinese education facilities. About 800 Year One students are unable to enrol in the Lick Hung and Chee Wen  two Chinese primary schools serving residents in the middle-class suburb  every year. About 4,000 students are forced to study in other SJKCs in other suburbs.

This request well rhymes with the democratic and civil rights of the 100,000-strong Chinese community in the neighbourhood, the group said.

In the press statement, DJZ also cautioned against the move of setting up the SJKC within a Vision school.

Various statements and verbal promises by the authorities claiming that the Vision School Project increases the number of SJKCs in the nation should be considered as misleading expedients, the group said.

The community of Chinese Malaysians should look at the Vision School Project from a pragmatic but not illusive angle, and learn well from the grievous historical precedent, back in the 1960s, of the Chinese Secondary Schools being persuaded to convert into English schools but ended up as Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan, the group added.

DJZ strongly believed that the Vision School Project is only a transitional tool to achieve the "ultimate target" of the 1956 Razak Report, namely "using the national language as the medium of instruction" in all schools.

The Sixth Malaysia Plan (1991-1995) saw an increase of 205 national-type schools, while Chinese schools decreased by four, and Tamil schools by 12.

Under the Seventh Malaysia Plan (1996-2000), there was an increase of 259 national schools, while no Chinese school was built and Tamil schools were further cut by four.