MCA Youth urges all schoolgirls to wear the baju kurung uniform to school in solidarity with a non-Malay Form Three student who was barred from entering school because she wore a baju kurung .

"I urge all female school pupils in primary and secondary schools to wear the baju kurung if they had already purchased one," its chief Chong Sin Woon said in a statement today.

 

Chong called the move by SMK Seri Mutiara in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, as "regressive".

The move will only encourage those who want to skip school to purposely wear the baju kurung to the school, he said.

Chong was responding to media reports that a student of Lun Bawang descent was sent home by her teachers yesterday for supposedly not complying with the school’s dress code.

 

According to The Malay Mail Online (MMO), the rules purportedly require that female Malay students wear the baju kurung , while non-Malays wear the pinafore.

 

Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said this morning that the school should not have imposed such rules without the ministry’s approval, and it is investigating the matter.

 

He said the wearing of baju kurung , especially by non-Malays, should have been promoted instead, because it is part of the national attire.

 

'Pride in others' traditional costumes'

Chong ( left ) added that Malaysians take pride in wearing the traditional costumes of other races, and this promotes mutual respect and appreciation among ethnic groups.

 

“Educators make themselves uneducated when they practise racial profiling and separate minor children into an ‘us-versus-them’ situation based on ethnicity.

 

“There are female non-Malay school teachers and principals in other schools who dress in the traditional baju kurung too when reporting for work.

 

“Isn’t it a paradox if a non-Malay educator is allowed to don the baju kurung but non-Malay students are not?” he said.

 

The senator also slammed the school for mocking the student’s uncle’s financial status, when he tried to appeal to the school to postpone imposing the rule until his next paycheck arrives, but to no avail.

 

According to MMO, Lawrence Jayaraj, who is the uncle, said school authorities told him to send the student to her old school while he applies for BR1M money to buy her a new uniform.

 

The uncle is reported to have been looking after the student since she was 12 years' old, after her parents sent her from Lawas, Sarawak, to be placed under Jayaraj’s and his wife’s care, in the hope of giving her a better education.

 

According to The Rakyat Post today, Jayaraj said the school’s principal and the Parent-Teacher Association (PIBG) chairperson have since apologised for the incident, and the student would be allowed to go to school in her baju kurung tomorrow.