Barisan Nasional today borrowed the words of a former DAP leader in criticising the party's disregard for Chinese education — a prominent issue in the ongoing Ketari by-election campaign in Pahang.

A flyer entitled 'The real faces of DAP on Chinese education' was being circulated and contains excerpts from the controversial expos by ex-DAP member of Parliament Dr Kua Kia Soong in his book Inside the DAP 1990-1995 .

Kua, currently the academic director of New Era College, had detailed DAP's high-level discussions in 1991 regarding the Chinese education movements United Chinese School Committees Associations Malaysia and United Chinese School Teachers Associations Malaysia (collectively known as Dong Jiao Zong).

The BN flyer quoted him as having written that "the tone of discussion was completely dismissive of Dong Jiao Zong".

"Two party central executive committee members expressed contempt for the Chinese education movement and even suggested off handedly that RM50 [donation] was sufficient," wrote Kua, who is also a director of human rights group Suaram.

According to the flyer, the former DAP leader walked out of the meeting with another former central executive committee member Lee Ban Chen as they found the "characteristic nonchalance" of the other CEC members "unbearable".

As a result of previous experiences with DAP leaders, the flyer said Kua concluded that "their attempts to champion the cause of Chinese education often lacked conviction."

Kua and several other Chinese educationists linked to Dong Jiao Zong had joined DAP in 1990 but they resigned from the party five years later.

Three facts

The flyer also highlighted "three facts" which were illustrative of DAP's disinterest in Chinese education.

The first was that DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang's son, Lim Guan Eng, was not sent to a Chinese school.

The second claimed that DAP life adviser Dr Chen Man Hin had sent his children to Singapore to receive an English education.

While the third alleged that Lim only donated RM5 to Chinese independent secondary schools when he was earning RM10,000 as the opposition leader in Parliament.

Even before nomination for the Ketari state seat last Saturday, both BN and DAP were using using Chinese education as a campaign fodder.

Last week, Prime Minister and BN chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the government could be taken to court should it close down any of the Chinese primary schools while Deputy Education Minister Hon Choon Kim promised to build three more Chinese schools starting August.

Government insincere

However, DAP had criticised the government for being insincere about Chinese schools, citing the closure of SJK(C) Damansara in Selangor and the implementation of vision schools, as examples.

The Vision School project is a government proposal to place schools of different teaching mediums in the same compound.

In a related matter, Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will officiate the newly completed hall of a Chinese primary school in the DAP stronghold of Kampung Perting in Ketari.

Ketari has some 17,400 voters, of which over half of them are Chinese who mostly work as farmers.

This Sunday's contest will see BN's Yum Ah Ha taking on DAP's Choong Siew Onn.