Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today reminded everyone, including Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA), to refrain from politicising education issues in the country.

muhyiddin yassin pc 170310 Muhyiddin ( right) , who is also the Education Minister, said that as such, the government had taken the stand that meetings between the PTA and the school administration should not be used as a platform to discuss the national education policy or system.

It was the government's view that the PTA should concentrate on how to assist the schools in moving forward in terms of academic performance instead of discussing policy issues, and should assist the students and teachers to progress and so on, he said when winding up the debate on the Royal address at the Dewan Rakyat.

He said parents were not prevented from giving out ideas, opinions or making criticisms on a particular policy and they could do so through forums or other channels outside the schools such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Muhyiddin said this when responding to a question from Nurul Izzah Anwar (PKR-Lembah Pantai) whether parents or the PTA would be given autonomy or space to give ideas or make criticisms concerning the national education policy.

In addition, he asked everyone to accept the National Education Policy which gave priority to national schools.

"Unfortunately, there are groups who try to politicise this, as though the government is neglecting or not giving fair and equal consideration by giving less allocations to other schools compared to national schools.

"We have 5.6 million children in national schools and between 500,000 and 600,000 children in national-type schools, so which should get our priority," he asked.

As such, he hoped the issue would not be politicised and called on everyone to help the government in making the National Education Policy a success regardless of their race and political ideology.

Muhyiddin also said that pre-school education would continue to be strengthened and be made part of the mainstream in the national education system.

In this context, the ministry would implement a comprehensive and integrated strategy, including through the National Pre-school Standard Curriculum for all implementing agencies including private pre-schools for the purpose of standardisation as well as improving pre-school education quality.

"At the same time, the private sector is encouraged to provide pre-school education through the provision of various incentives by the government such as launching grants and simplifying the procedures and process for setting up private pre-school classes," he said.

- Bernama