Now that Pakatan Harapan (PH) has vowed to recognise the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) in its GE14 manifesto, it would be ludicrous for Barisan Nasional (BN) to follow suit by doing the same in its forthcoming manifesto. BN should be reminded that it is the ruling coalition, the same coalition that has run this country for more than sixty years!
No, the BN government would look less silly if it announced the recognition of the UEC as soon as possible, ie. before its manifesto is launched.
The recognition of the UEC has featured in practically every general election since 1986. The litany of reasons given by the government for not recognising it through the years gets more and more bizarre. It used to say that the UEC’s curriculum was not up to mark, or that the UEC is not based on the national curriculum and education philosophy, or even that it is a threat to national sovereignty.
In recent years, international schools using English and other foreign languages have proliferated in our country. According to the Economic Transformation Programme, there are more than 81 international schools in operation nationwide. Now, if this concerted effort to promote foreign schools in Malaysia is not seen as a threat to national sovereignty, why should the 60 Malaysian independent Chinese secondary schools (MICSS) be seen as a threat to sovereignty?
Malaysian Chinese secondary schools have existed since 1923
For those who are unfamiliar with our nation’s history, Chinese secondary schools have existed in our country since 1923 when Chung Ling School of Penang started its secondary-level classes. At independence in 1957, there were some 86 Chinese secondary schools in Malaya.
It was only after the 1961 Education Act that many of these schools were forced to become English-medium (yes! Not Malay-medium). Only 14 Chinese secondary schools remained “independent” schools. It was after the “independent schools’ revival movement” in the 70s that the number of MICSS climbed to 60. In 1975, when MICSS decided to hold their first unified examination, the Chinese education leaders were summoned to Parliament by then-education minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and 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. To date, there has never been a leak in any UEC examination, and the curriculum and marking of exam scripts are carried out every year with professional precision. 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 80s, 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.
Putrajaya should look east for UEC recognition
The late Sarawak chief minister Adenan Satem said the education ministry was stupid not to recognise the UEC of the 60 MICSS, a certificate that is recognised by the top universities in the world since it has led to a brain drain of our talented human resources. Compared to high-tech brainstorming and money-spinning Putrajaya, Adenan in our East Malaysian backwaters has demonstrated to West Malaysians what a savvy and enlightened politician he is. Our West Malaysian dinosaurs certainly have a lot to learn from our East Malaysian brethren.
How do foreign students get admitted into Malaysian institutions?
We are all aware of the fact that our local public and private higher learning educational institutions enrol students from all over the world. A simple question to the education ministry will show that the reason for not recognising the UEC 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 not to 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 enrol in a Malaysian tertiary institution since their syllabus cannot be as “Malaysian” as that of the UEC?
Academic accreditation of education institutions and certificates is what the Malaysian Qualifications Authority (MQA) was set up to do in the first place. One assumes that the government recognises all foreign educational certificates based on their accreditation by the MQA. How else do foreign students gain admission into our institutions of higher learning? Thus, a student from China can enter a Malaysian tertiary institution based on China’s secondary school leaving certificate. One presumes that our MQA, which is amply staffed, would have done an accreditation of the relevant certificate.
Suspending a purely professional decision for 40 years!
Thus, 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 more than 40 years!
It should be pointed out at the outset that, unlike for 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). 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 an SPM credit in BM for UEC holders, that is reasonable. Nevertheless, the academic accreditation of the UEC by MQA is a totally separate matter.
Malaysians should also know that there are hundreds of non-Chinese students in MICSS and almost 100,000 non-Chinese students in Chinese-medium primary schools in 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!
Does UiTM violate national sovereignty? This Bumiputeras-only policy definitely violates the International Convention for the Eradication of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).
Recognise the UEC now
The truth is that, through the years the UEC has become a political issue since Umno refuses to recognise the MICSS system because of its monolingual “Malay Agenda”, a policy that is holding back the creative development of our human resources. Thus, all these years the Chinese and Tamil communities have 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. This will help promote greater integration among Malaysians and also alleviate the financial plight of MICSS graduates who cannot afford tertiary education in private colleges or abroad.
If the BN government persists in its stubborn adherence to an outdated Umno prejudice and refuses to recognise the UEC before GE14, then Prime Minister Najib Razak might as well re-use his post-GE13 speech when he asked “Apa lagi Cina mau?”
Kua Kia Soong is Suaram adviser.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.