Tomorrow S A Big Day For Nutp Maszlee On Anti Jawi Congress

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Education Minister Maszlee Malik was evasive and responded with an apparent non sequitur when asked on the mounting opposition against his ministry's plans to introduce Jawi lessons in vernacular schools next year

Queried about Chinese educationist groups Dong Jiao Zong's plan to hold a National Chinese Organisations Congress to oppose the new lessons, Maszlee initially refused to respond
Then, he said, "Tomorrow is a big day for the National Union of Teaching Professions, so we don't need to..."The rest of Maszlee's (above) comments were unintelligible to the reporters present, as he was walking briskly away from the venue in Kuala Lumpur as he spoke
He was met by reporters at the KL Convention Centre today after he had released his ministry's report card for 2019 — the first ministry to do so

According to the guidelines released by the Education Ministry on Dec 5, pupils' parents will be decide whether schools would conduct Jawi lessons for Year 4 student as part of their Bahasa Malaysia classes
If at least a simple majority of parents agree, the lessons would proceed
At a press conference yesterday, however, Dong Jiao Zong said school boards should also have a say on the matter and feared this could lead to the boards losing control over the schools they manage
PTAs given priorityDong Jiao Zong collectively refers to both the United Chinese Schools Teachers' Association (Jiao Zong) and the United Chinese School Committees' Association (Dong Zong)
They plan to hold a national congress on the Jawi lessons on Dec 28 with the aim of dissuading the government proceeding with lessons
Meanwhile, at a separate function in Petaling Jaya today, Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching denied that the guidelines would sideline school boards
However, she said the ministry is prioritising the views of Parent-Teacher Associations
"Why we make parents the main decisionmakers? The reason is simple. The parents are the guardians of the kids, so you should get their consent if you want to do anything [...]"When schools implemented the Dual Language Program (in the past), they need to get parents' consent, the school consent, but school boards had no role as well. Why this wasn’t an issue at that point of time
“I hope we need to see this issue objectively," she said. - Mkini

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