Clause 12.2.8 of the new DLP guidelines requires that Year One and Form One classes have one non-DLP class teaching maths and science in Bahasa Melayu, regardless of parental preference.

Lim referred to a claim by educationist Noor Azimah Rahim who recently said that the elite schools — MCKK and Tunku Kurshiah College — were exempt from the new rule.

“So far, the education ministry has neither confirmed nor denied what Azimah said (on the elite schools),” Lim said in a statement.

Azimah also said that the new guidelines explicitly exclude Sarawak. It has exclusively allowed all of the state’s primary schools to conduct DLP in full since 2020, which means that the medium of instruction of all science and mathematics classes is the English language.

Azimah, the chairman of Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia, also said that the education ministry had no plans to allocate additional funds for DLP in other states, based on an April report.

Lim asked if schools in the peninsula could also apply to the ministry to forgo the new DLP rule. “Fair play and a level playing field can only lead to a rational and logical conclusion,” he said.

Most people would not object to the education ministry giving Sarawak RM18 million to run DLP classes in English for science and maths, but the elite schools’ refusal to follow the ministry’s orders was surprising, he added.

“What would raise eyebrows are Azimah’s revelations that two elite schools in Peninsular Malaysia producing the cream of the Malay government and corporate world intend to ignore the latest directive from the ministry,” he said.

FMT has reached out to the ministry for comment.