The government should unveil to the public the new 10-year national education blueprint aimed at improving the quality of education, said DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang today.

The former leader of the opposition said that the blueprint for the new millennium was approved by the cabinet on June 20 without the public knowing any details of the government's plan in providing quality education.

"Apart from the perfunctory announcement by the Education Minister Musa Mohamad at the end of June about the cabinet's approval, we are completely in the dark about the educational blueprint 2001-2010," said Lim in a statement.

He said the public was still in the dark as to who was responsible for formulating the blueprint and when work over the blueprint started and ended.

Lim also claimed that even the parliament which met last month was not informed any details regarding this blueprint.

"This must be the most extraordinary blueprint ever embarked .... as the country was not only unaware of its existence but two-and-a-half months after the cabinet approval, the whole country still knows nothing about it, let alone its details," said Lim.

Strange silence

He called upon Musa to immediately make public the blueprint so that the people would know the government's efforts in arresting the decline in local education standards.

Lim said that a recent Asian survey on the quality of the national education systems in the continent placed Malaysia in a very lowly rank.

He said Malaysia was placed at the seventh spot out of 12 nations surveyed, lagging behind countries such South Korea, Singapore, Japan, China and India.

"We should be among the top three nations with the best quality education system, (just) as we boast of our (Petronas) Twin Towers and other world's biggest, longest and tallest achievements."

Lim also urged the cabinet which meets tomorrow to "send out a clear signal that the government is fully aware of the acute educational crisis".

He added that the education ministry has kept a low profile and strange silence on the survey which was conducted by a Hongkong-based organisation.

"However the minister, his deputies and parliamentary secretary had always been very quick and prompt to respond to all sorts of allegations about the so-called underground graduate militant movement in the universities."

Underground movement

Lim was referring to Musa's directive yesterday to all vice-chancellors in public universities to conduct an immediate probe into claims that thousands of students were involved in underground movements in the campuses.

The claims came about following a confession by a former Universiti Teknologi Malaysia student Wan Noor Hayati Wan Alias on Sunday that she was one of the students involved in such a movement to systematically influence Malay students to topple the government. Other sources had said that 2,500 undergraduates were involved in the movements.

Musa had said that the ministry, with the assistance of the police, will monitor the situation and investigate who these sources to find out from them the number of students involved.