COMMENT The Sarawak chief minister has recently said that the Education Ministry is stupid not to recognise the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) of the 60 Malaysian Independent Chinese Secondary Schools (MICSS), a certificate that has been recognised by the top universities in the world since it has led to a brain drain of our talented human resources.

In fact, the government’s justification for not recognising the UEC - “it does not follow the national education system” - is irrational because it is based on a political agenda.

Encouraging creative and critical thinking?

Our Education Blueprint proclaims that we want to inculcate creative and critical thinking among our students. Now how would a critical thinking student look at this statement by the Education Ministry that “the MICSS do not follow the national education system”?

We are all aware of the fact that our local public and private higher learning educational institutions enroll students from all over the world. A simple question to the Education Ministry will show that this statement is completely untenable, namely:

How does a student from Kazakhstan or Bosnia or China gain admission into Malaysian tertiary education institutions when their respective education systems do not follow our national system?

And which aspect of the National Education System is the UEC syllabus alleged to not follow? It cannot be in Maths and Science; nor can it be Geography since the Malaysian education system has almost obliterated Geography from its syllabus.

Can it be in History? Is the History syllabus of the UEC not ‘Malaysian’ enough? If that is the case, how can any foreign student from any part of the globe qualify to enroll in a Malaysian tertiary institution since their syllabus cannot be as ‘Malaysian’ as that of the UEC!

Just how good is our SPM history syllabus? Dr Ranjit Singh Malhi has just pointed out the bizarre questions that have been asked of our students in the 2015 SPM History Examination Paper Two, questions which are not even a test of students’ ‘historical’ knowledge (The Star, Nov 16, 2015).

“Question 9(c): Out of four current Malay-language newspapers, students were required to state the issues raised in these four newspapers and to suggest how the press can further enhance its role in developing society;

Question 11 (c): Based on technological developments in current weaponry, predict the world’s future...”

What is the MQA for?

Academic accreditation of education institutions and certificates is what the Malaysian Qualifications Authority (MQA) has been set up to do in the first place! One assumes that the government recognizes all foreign educational certificates based on their accreditation by the Malaysian Qualifications Authority (MQA). How else do foreign students gain admission into our institutions of higher learning?

Thus, a student from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) can enter a Malaysian tertiary institution based on the PRC’s secondary school leaving certificate. One presumes that our MQA, which is amply staffed, would have done an accreditation of the PRC’s relevant certificate.

The fact that the MQA has yet to do an accreditation of the UEC when other foreign universities have done so since the Eighties is not saying very much for professional standards of the MQA. But it is not really their fault since they have to follow this irrational political agenda of the Education Ministry all these years.

If the MQA is a professional accreditation institution without political constrictions, it would spell out in no uncertain terms what its audit of the UEC has concluded. It does not matter if the requirements of the MQA are far more stringent than the National University of Singapore’s - it just has to spell out in no uncertain terms what the results of that audit are! The government cannot simply suspend a purely professional decision for nearly 40 years!

The historical background to this irrational policy

So why has the BN government doggedly refused to recognise the UEC all these years?

I don’t think their ‘stupidity’ is an issue. In 1975, when the MICSS decided to hold its first Unified Examination, the Chinese education leaders were summoned to Parliament by then-education minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and were told in no uncertain terms to cancel the examination “or else...!”

The Chinese education leaders carried on regardless of the consequences and the UEC has been held every year since then without ever springing a leak in any examination papers! (See Kua Kia Soong, The Chinese Schools of Malaysia: A Protean Saga, 1985)

In 1983, I was engaged by Dong Zong chairperson Lim Fong Seng to conduct a campaign for the recognition of the UEC all over the world. By 1985, my mission had been accomplished when most of the reputable universities around the world recognised the UEC after due accreditation process.

Today, more than 400 foreign tertiary institutions around the world recognise the UEC and our MICSS students are found in countries all over the globe, including France, Germany and Russia. Ever since the Eighties, the National University of Singapore has been poaching hundreds of top UEC students not only for their academic excellence but also for their trilingual capabilities in an effort to balance the cultural mix of their Anglophile Singaporeans.

Our two children’s UEC certificates were duly recognised by UK universities and our daughter was even awarded a bursary by the UK National Health Service to study for her medical degree. Could she have won a scholarship to study for a medical degree by our government? How could she when the Malaysian government does not even recognise the UEC?

SPM Bahasa Malaysia requirement? No problem!

It should be pointed out at the outset that, in sharp contrast to foreign students, BM and English are compulsory language papers in the UEC and many MICSS schools also run the SPM at the fifth secondary year (The MICSS is a six-year secondary school system). My two children who studied in MICSS also have full SPM certificates and credits in BM. This easily demolishes the myth that MICSS students only study in the Chinese medium.

To be fair to our civil service and local tertiary institutions, if they require SPM credit in BM for UEC holders, that is reasonable. Nevertheless, the academic accreditation of the UEC by MQA is a totally separate matter altogether.

Malaysians should also know that there are hundreds of non-Chinese students in the MICSS and more than 80,000 non-Chinese students in Chinese-medium primary schools of Malaysia. This is in sharp contrast to UiTM which does not admit ANY ‘non-bumiputeras’ into this public institution even though ‘non-bumiputera’ taxpayers have also paid for this institution!

Promote integration by recognising UEC

The truth is that through the years the UEC has become a political issue since Umno refuses to recognise the MICSS system because of their mono-lingual agenda, a policy that is holding back creative development of our human resources. Thus, all these years the community has been paying double taxation when, apart from paying income tax, they also financially support this mother tongue education system.

Recognising the UEC will allow MICSS graduates to be admitted into our public tertiary institutions as well as the civil and armed services, which is the stated intention of the government recently. This will help to promote greater integration among Malaysians and also alleviate the financial plight of those MICSS graduates who cannot afford tertiary education in the private colleges or abroad.

DR KUA KIA SOONG is Suaram adviser.