The Malacca Chinese Education Progressive Association has claimed that the state Education Department is asking all Chinese schools to add Jawi inscriptions to their signboards.

A notice, issued by the department’s Islamic Education Section chief Ahmad Hamizi Abu Hassan to all headmasters and principals in Malacca, is requesting that all primary and secondary schools “implement the usage of Jawi”.

The notice, dated Nov 2 this year, states that the state government and the Art Institute of Malaysia Malacca have held the launching and implementation of Jawi at all the federal and state agencies and departments, as well as the higher education institutes and schools in the state.

“As such, you are asked to implement Jawi writing in addition to implementing the romanised writing, so as to realise the state government’s desire to elevate Malay (romanised and Jawi writing) as the national language,” the notice states.

However, Malacca Chinese Education Progressive Association president Yang Yin Chong claimed that he had received complaints from some Chinese school committees that the department was actually asking Chinese schools to add Jawi inscriptions to their school signboards.

Yang said the the property rights of Chinese schools belong to the school committees and the schools’ signboards already have the Malay language on them.

Furthermore, he said, Jawi is not the official form of writing as stated in the Federal Constitution.

Unreasonable directives

Hence, he asked the state Education Department not to issue such “unreasonable” and insensitive directives.

“I would like to urge all the school committees and the parent-teacher associations to unite and stand firm to not to abide to such directives,” Yang said in a statement yesterday.

Malaysiakini contacted the officer-in-charge at the state Education Department yesterday but she refused to respond to the controversy.

The Malacca government has, since early this year, instructed that Jawi inscriptions be included in the signboards and billboards of all premises as part of a campaign to promote the usage of Jawi as national form of writing.

It was reported that several roads in Melaka Raya have replaced their road signboards with ones containing Jawi inscriptions.

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