The words 'Vision School' have been bandied about lately so much that many Malaysians are asking what it is all about. However, the two-page guideline issued last week by the education ministry shed little light on the subject and did little to assuage the concerns raised by the Chinese community.

The public has a somewhat sketchy knowledge that Chinese, Tamil and national-type schools involved in the Vision School project will be housed on the same premises and share common facilities such as canteen and playground. Nevertheless, each school will have its own name, building, administration and medium of instruction.

Beyond that, however, as Dong Jiao Zong (DJZ) chairman Quek Suan Hiang observed, the general public has difficulty understanding the implications in the Vision School project and accusations have been hurled at DJZ for their supposedly baseless opposition to the project.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself had accused the DJZ of "never (accepting) anything about education in Malaysia" and wanting a "China-type" Chinese education.

[Dong Jiao Zong, which has rejected the Vision School project, consists of the United Chinese School Committees' Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong) and United Chinese School Teachers' Association of Malaysia (Jiao Zong).]

But the reasons for DJZ's objections are little heard, let alone debated, in their actual content and context. Jiao Zong chairman Ong Chiow Chuen explained that the issue does not stand alone and has to be analysed from a historical perspective.

"Our worries are based on the (various) Education Acts and the guarantees made by numerous education ministers since Independence. The guidelines are not law. History shows that the long-term policy of the government is to have a single medium of instruction in all schools," Ong said.

Mother tongue education hampered

According to a press statement released by DJZ on Nov 9, the 1956 Razak Educational Report and 1961 Education Act state that schools will "accept children of all races into the national education system with the national language to be the main medium of instruction even though we realise that this process cannot be hastily implemented but needs to be promoted gradually...".

The 1996 Education Act, meanwhile, under Section 17 (1), says the national language shall be the main medium of instruction in all educational institutions in the National Education System except a national-type school established under section 28 or any other educational institution exempted by the Minister from the subsection.

For the past 50 years, in order to effect 'the vision', the authorities continually took steps and embarked on policies to hamper the right of the multiracial communities in having their mother tongue education, said DJZ in its statement.

The Vision School Project is not the only contentious case in the history of Chinese education in Malaysia.

Ong cited the case of the Chinese secondary schools in the 1960s as an example. He said the government had promised that after their conversion into national type schools, one-third of the teaching time would be conducted in the mother tongue language.

Today, however, such schools have only one subject taught in the mother tongue and that is Mandarin itself, he pointed out.

"With the 1996 Education Act, the national type Chinese secondary school no longer exists, as only national type schools set up under Section 28 by the minister after 1996 can be termed as national-type schools," Ong said, adding that so-called national-type Chinese secondary schools in existence were no different from national secondary schools.

Broken promise

Even with the new Vision School project, the government has not said whether it will be a national-type or a national school, nor has the education ministry stated clearly which category the Vision School will belong to, Ong said.

Ong also recalls the issue of the appointment of "unqualified" administrators for Chinese schools during the Umno split in 1987 and in the lead-up to the infamous Operation Lallang.

"The government promised that only administrators fluent in Mandarin would be sent to the Chinese national-type primary schools, but this pledge was not kept. In 1997, DJZ found out that the authorities continued to send non-Mandarin-speaking administrators to Chinese schools.

"This shows that the government can break its promise easily," he said.

The Sin Chew Jit Poh last Friday reported that Deputy Education Minister Hon Choon Kim had guaranteed the Chinese Malaysian society that the education policy in the country would not be changed into a uniform school policy.

Ong has refuted Hon's assurance, saying that "we have to look at history and be responsible to history."

"The minister's term is only for five or 10 years. What guarantee can he give after a cabinet reshuffle or when he is no longer a minister?" Ong asked.

After strong protests from the Chinese community, the government had declared on Aug 9 this year that the 1995 Vision School project guidelines would be repealed and that the MCA president and education minister had been entrusted to come out with new guidelines.

The new guidelines were issued to DJZ on Sept 22.

Dong Zong chief executive officer Bock Tai Hee said that no discussions were held and that they only received the guidelines.

"The education minister's claim that we have agreed to the Vision School project is totally untrue," Bock insisted.

Education Minister Musa Mohamad had claimed that Dong Jiao Zong had agreed with the Vision School project earlier on.

According to a Sin Chew Jit Poh report on Oct 29, the minister said that after the objection of Dong Jiao Zong, it would be "useless" to discuss the issue with them again.

Right objective,wrong reason

"The concept of a mother tongue education calls for the administration, examinations, teaching and communication to be conducted in the mother tongue," said Bock.

The detailed research done by DJZ had concluded that the Vision School project is identical to the 1985 Integration School Programme which was rejected by the Chinese community, he said.

He added that the objective of the Vision School was noble - to promote racial unity among children from a tender age.

"We do not oppose the objective but we are against the reason given by the education ministry for the concept which basically pointed fingers at the Chinese and Tamil primary schools as the root cause of disunity in the country," Bock said.

"Even if the nation finds itself in a state of disunity, it is not due to mother tongue education. Rather, this could have been caused by the unfair policies of the government," he said.

Under the framework of the Vision School project, a coordinating committee made up of three headmasters and six teachers from the three school streams will assume management of the schools.

"Everything has to be passed by the committee, and the function and role of the board of directors will subsequently be lost," Bock said, adding that a board of directors plays a crucial role in upholding Chinese education by undertaking donation campaigns, giving advice and cooperating with the government.

He said DJZ was willing to cooperate with the government in promoting interaction among all students.

"But why didn't the government continue with the1986 'Programme to Integrate Pupils Toward Unity' which had agreed upon by DJZ and education ministry?" Bock asked.

"Why must it implement the Vision School project? Unless there is a hidden agenda," he said.

Call to repeal oppressive section

Bock stressed that the education ministry should set up schools according to the needs of the community and the neighbourhoods they stayed in.

"DJZ urged the government to abandon the Vision School project as the spirit of the project still retains the ultimate objective of 1961 Education Act which is to change all the non-Bahasa Malaysia schools into Bahasa Malaysia schools," Bock claimed.

The Chinese community had long called for new national-type Chinese primary schools to be built in areas with a high density of Chinese. During the last general elections, in an attempt to retain the Chinese vote, the BN-led government promised six new national-type Chinese primary schools would be built.

"Language is not a tool, it's about our traditional culture. If we lose our culture, the new generation will become foreigners," Ong said, adding that Chinese children graduating from national schools and mother tongue schools were different.

Bock observed that there was much suspicion between the Chinese community and the education ministry.

"If they (the country's leaders) are sincere, they should amend the 1996 Education Act and repeal the oppressive section pertaining to mother tongue education," said Bock.

With the matter is still unsettled and until the government acts to remove the fears of the Chinese community over the education of their children, the Vision School project remains hazy on the far horizon.

Related stories

[#1]Blurring the Vision School issue[/#], Nov 10

Consult all before effecting Vision School plan, Nov 9

Education group rebuts PM's remarks, Nov 7