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Raise Jawi issue with fed government

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Lau (right) speaks at a press conference as Wee (left) looks on.

KUCHING: The Sarawak United Association of Private School Management Board (Sarawak Dong Zong) has called upon the Sarawak government to raise with the federal government the issue of Jawi subject for Year 4 Bahasa Melayu (BM) syllabus in Chinese national type primary schools.

Its chairman Temenggong Datuk Vincent Lau Lee Ming said the board had appealed to Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg to bring up the matter to the federal Ministry of Education (MoE).

“The Chinese are not against Jawi or Khat per se; instead we respect the cultural and religious elements associated with it.

“But we are disappointed that the MoE insists on imposing the learning of it by including it in the BM textbook despite strong objections from Chinese primary school boards of management and parents,” he told a press conference after submitting a memorandum to Abang Johari at Wisma Bapa Malaysia today.

“We want the MoE to omit the teaching and learning of Jawi because based on a survey conducted by the MoE this year, 97.3 percent of the boards of managements and parents objected to it,” he said.

Lau said Sarawak Dong Zong last February conducted a similar survey in 222 Chinese primary schools comprising 169 boards of management and 50 parent-teacher associations (PTAs) across the state, and the outcome of the survey indicated that 219 schools or 98.7 percent declined to accept the subject.

“We hope the state Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research (MESTR) will raise the issue with the federal MoE and look into the whole thing at the policy level.

“The state government should be more involved in the sense that whenever there is a policy coming up, we should have some say because the implementation of any policy will affect Sarawak as well.

Lau further explained that in the past for the Chinese primary school, Jawi script was included in part of the BM text books for Year Five and Year Six, but it included other languages, namely the Chinese calligraphy and Tamil script as well.

“These have been there for so many years, and there was no dispute. But the problem is, from next year onwards, in the new BM textbook, they add in the Jawi script for Year Four syllabus.

“And for the Year Five and Year Six textbooks, the Chinese calligraphy and Tamil script are taken away. We feel that this is not right.

“We have no problem with those who want to learn and write Jawi, but don’t put it inside the textbook. It is like forcing everybody to learn. Instead, the MoE should encourage the school or community to promote the learning of Jawi,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sarawak Dong Zong honorary treasurer Datuk Richard Wee Liang Chiat said the Sarawak Dong Zong was not against Jawi.

“We mentioned this to Abang Johari and he shared our view that this (Jawi) should not be deemed as compulsory but optional and put it as an extra-curricular activity for the students to choose if they wish to learn,” he said.

Wee said this was among the requests that the Sarawak Dong Zong had put forward. 

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