'Education policy favours Chinese and Indians at the expense of other minorities' - Former judge

The Government, by supporting Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools, are neglecting other minorities and this was unconstitutional, according to a former Court of Appeal judge.

Datuk Mohd Noor Abdullah said that the current Education Policy contravenes Article 8 and Article 12 of the Federal Constitution, which talks about equality and non-discrimination on education respectively.

Mohd Noor said that the Government has made the Chinese and Tamil communities “privileged” by only supporting Chinese and Tamil type national schools, Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan(SJK), but not the language of other ethnicities.

“How about the bumiputeras in Sabah and Sarawak? The Government does not establish or assist in establishing SJK Telegu, Malayalam, Punjabi, Urdu, Siam and so on,” said Mohd Noor, who said that the Orang Asli should be more privileged than all the communities.

“Chinese and Tamil school teachers, headmasters and staff are appointed and paid salaries with Government Funds, but not with other communities.”

“The government acquired lands and allocate public money to these two communities but not to the other communities.”

He explained that Article 12 prohibits discrimination against citizens on the ground of race in the administration of public educational institutions, and the current system was “abhorrent to the Constitution”.

Calling this policy “unjust” and not “equitable”, Mohd Noor, who was jokingly called himself “Hakim Unity”, said that the status of vernacular schools should be reviewed for the sake of national unity.

Mohd Noor today proposed to the government to ‘rebrand’ vernacular schools to become national schools, which makes English and Bahasa Malaysia compulsory but gives option to learn other languages.

“We are not killing the language... we are asking everyone to be given a chance to learn the language. We are not abolishing the schools," he added. "The branding is divisive. The teachers and schools can still be there but the phrase vernacular can be dropped."

He said that another proposal can be that the vernacular schools be converted into ‘schools for oriental studies.’

Last month, the former justice sparked controversy when he declared that efforts should be made to retain Malay political power and increase Malay economic share to 67%