Pakatan Rakyat has urged Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to recognise immediately the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) and not to use it as a vote-buying tactic during the general election campaign period.

PKR vice-president Tian Chua said that the government should show its courage by accepting the Chinese high school examination as entrance qualification to public universities and the public service.

"We think (the recognition) should be taken in a bipartisan approach. The prime minister should announce the recognition before the general election.

dong zong cny open door 170213 04 "(There is) no need to wait for Pakatan to implement it after (we) win the election. The credit will go to the prime minister if done now," he told a press conference at the PKR headquarters in Petaling Jaya today.

Echoing Chua, DAP political education bureau chief Liew Chin Tong, who was present, said that the premier should not make the recognition as “election candy”.

“We need to rethink mother tongue education, it is not a zero-sum game. We can learn different languages but we can also master Bahasa Malaysia,” the Bukit Bendera MP added.

Despite the high expectations of the Chinese community, he added, Najib did not make any announcement on the UEC during his unprecedented attendance at the United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong)'s Chinese New Year open house last Sunday.

Dong Zong and other Chinese groups have for years been campaigning to get government recognition for the UEC, a private examination that students in all 60 independent Chinese high schools nationwide sit for.

Despite the UEC being widely accepted as an entrance qualification to universities in Singapore, Australia, China and other countries, the Malaysian government does not recognise it.

Asked on why Pakatan did not announce the recognition during Dong Zong event, Chua said that the opposition did not wish to “politicise” the issue.

“We did not want to get credit (for the announcement)... It is not our target to show we are more progressive than Barisan Nasional,” the Batu MP said, adding that Pakatan did not want to utilise the issue to woo the voters.

He also said that Pakatan had already put the recognition of UEC on its common policy agenda.

To a question on whether the recognition might make Pakatan lose the Malay vote, Chua dismissed this.

“I don’t think that our fair treatment to the vernacular schools will make the Malays dissatisfied. (Malays) are not racist and xenophobic,” he added.

Other present included PAS supporters wing chief Hu Pang Chow and PKR education bureau deputy chief Lee Khim Sin.