Criticism against vernacular education at Umno divisional annual general assemblies is a bid for easy publicity, said former MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek.

Instead of encouraging a multilingual Malaysia, he said, Umno divisional leaders wilfully ignore that the right to mother tongue education is protected by Article 152 of the Federal Constitution.

"This is an old issue often used by politicians from both (sides of the) political divide to make them look great and good," he said in a blog entry today.

According to Chua (right) , it is shallow to blame vernacular education for disunity.

This is because non-Chinese students make up a significant 15 percent enrollment in Chinese vernacular schools, and this figure is rising.

"Are you saying parents are not sensitive to their children's needs?" he asked.

Deeper reasons for disunity

Chua said there are many monolingual and mono-ethnic countries which are disunited, showing there are "deeper issues" causing disunity.

He said that further clamouring on this issue will only raise ethnic tension and not be beneficial to Umno or MCA who seem to "take the bait" all the time.

"If some Umno leaders do not wake up to today's political reality in Malaysia, Umno and BN will miss the train and start the blame game.

"A progressive and competitive nation should encourage its citizens to be multilingual but unfortunately, some politicians just ignore the elephant in the room.

"They choose to get the five-minute publicity," he said.

For unity's sake, abolish vernacular schools