Centre for Policy Initiatives director Dr Lim Teck Ghee described Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s call on parties to cease using NGOs to propagate their views on the matter as “wilful ignorance”, adding that giving up on the fight would send a wrong signal of acceptance to the government.
“Interlok is a beach head for the Little Napoleons and other Ketuanan bureaucrats to impose their agenda of educational and cultural seppuku on a young captive audience.
“Civil society groups and other concerned individuals should not be taken in by Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s statement that the Interlok issue has been resolved.
“In fact, not only is it not resolved but compliance will mean that Interlok could well be extended from its present Zone 2 (Klang Valley) coverage thereafter to Zone 1, Zone 3 and Zone 4 in the rest of the country,” he said in a statement today.
The deputy prime minister had said that, as far as the government was concerned, the issue had been resolved and described the groups as irresponsible.
The government had confirmed on March 24 that the novel would be retained in the secondary school syllabus and only parts deemed sensitive by the country’s Indian community would be amended.
The book, which was written by national laureate Datuk Abdullah Hussain in 1971, chronicles the daily struggles of the Malays, Chinese and Indians in pre-independence Malaya.
But Lim predicted that the government’s success in retaining “Interlok” would only help leaders inject their indoctrination into the syllabi for the younger forms and, later, in the primary school curriculum.
“The history and moral subjects have already been tampered with. Currently the focus is on language and literature. What will be next?” he said.
Lim also complained that it was the civil society groups who had been on the forefront of condemning the use of the book while dissent from political parties has been “slow and reluctant”.
“A quick glance at news and reports from the websites will show that civil society organisations such as NIAT, Hartal MSM, and the Centre for Policy Initiatives have provided analysis and public feedback for several months now on the unsuitability of Interlok.
“The NGO concern is in sharp contrast to the lack of criticism on the book by public figures. Political parties from both Barisan Nasional and the opposition have been slow or reluctant to discuss the appropriateness of the book as a school text,” he said.
Lim noted that NGO worries over the issue were genuine as such organisations were neither politically nor racially motivated.
This, he continued, was because all segments of society, including the Muslims and non-Muslims were equally concerned over why “Interlok” was not scrapped from schools.
“Why, when it is clearly in contravention of the Education Ministry and the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka’s own guidelines on textbook and literary work.
“The minister should welcome our feedback and seek to engage with us rather than try to intimidate us,” he said.
Today, Lim called on all NGOs and parents to continue their fight to have the book removed, this time with “even greater urgency”, predicting that capitulating to the government’s opinion would imply that they did not care about the education system.
No comments:
Post a Comment