DAP Socialist Youth (Dapsy) varsity affairs bureau director, Leong Yu Sheng added that this right must be protected even though there were differences in the medium of instruction, culture and syllabus.

Leong was responding to a speech made by Umno Youth deputy chief Khairul Azwan Harun at the Umno general assembly on Wednesday, in which he warned that Putrajaya may face pressure to neglect Chinese schools and even abolish them if the Chinese community did not support the Barisan Nasional.

“The reality is that Umno and MCA often play up the issue of the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) but they do not uphold social justice for Malaysia’s multiracial population.

“The UEC has been discriminated against for so long by the BN even though it is recognised by academic institutions worldwide,” Leong said in a statement released today.

He added it was accepted by the California Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Oxford University, University of Cambridge, University of Toronto and the National University of Singapore, among others.

Leong also claimed Prime Minister Najib Razak and MCA did not want to accept the fact that the UEC was recognised in other countries and continued to ignore it in the interest of Umno and BN’s brand of racial politics.

He then accused the MCA of continuously misleading the Chinese community by promising that the UEC would be given recognition but that promise has yet to materialise.

“Public universities in Malaysia are already accepting many international students who cannot speak Bahasa Malaysia. Therefore, this shows that admission standards depend on academic qualifications rather than the national education policy, which the government often uses to justify its non-recognition of the UEC.”

With that, Leong urged Pakatan Harapan to include the recognition of the UEC in its election manifesto for the next general election (GE14).