MOE bins plan to reduce language class periods, BM was also on chopping block

The Education Ministry has shelved a plan to cut the minimum number of mother-tongue language classes from 12 periods a week to 10, after intense backlash from proponents of vernacular schools.

Critics - including from MCA and MIC - had said that the plan would undermine efforts to teach non-Malay children their mother tongue.

However, while most of the backlash centred on a reduction in Chinese and Tamil classes in vernacular schools, the ministry indicated yesterday that the plan would have also reduced the number of Bahasa Melayu classes at national schools to a minimum of 10 periods per week.

Checks on Deputy Education Minister Wong Kah Woh's Facebook found several posts in Chinese saying the plan would have affected three languages. However, the fact that the Malay curriculum was also on the chopping block was underreported.

In one such post on Oct 26, Wong had retorted that those saying the ministry wanted to eliminate the Chinese language from Chinese schools should have also argued that the same was being done to the Malay language in national schools.

Besides reducing language periods, the new curriculum would have also introduced a character-building module for primary school pupils, taking up about 15 minutes a day, or 75 minutes a week.

Language still a priority

In a statement announcing that the plan was scrapped yesterday, the Education Ministry said the decision followed engagement sessions with stakeholders.

"The Education Ministry thanks all who have contributed their views. The mastery of language and the education needs of students in all streams remain a priority in renewing the national curriculum," it said.

The statement did not touch on other proposals for the 2027 school year.

Previously, MCA vice-president Tan Teik Cheng had accused Wong of failing to safeguard the interests of Chinese national-type schools (SJKCs).

Meanwhile, MIC deputy president M Saravanan wrote a letter to Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek yesterday, which was also forwarded to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, expressing concern on behalf of Indian parents.

He said that Tamil and other mother tongues must not pay the price of curriculum expansion, arguing that their importance extends well beyond the classroom and into the preservation of cultural identity and heritage.

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