Maszlee unfit to be Education Minister, says NGO

Dominique Ng

By Lian Cheng

KUCHING, May 20: Sarawak Association for People’s Aspiration (Sapa) opines that instead of bringing education reforms, Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik is entrenching the unfair policies of the former regime.

Its president, Dominique Ng, said what Maszlee had been doing and saying were worse than Umno’s.

“Instead of upholding what they pledged and which we had been fighting for before the general election (14th General Election in 2018) in getting rid of all unfair policies, such as the pre-university quota system, Pakatan Harapan (PH) is doing otherwise.

“Instead of bringing about reforms in education, Maszlee is entrenching what Umno did before and worse,” Ng told DayakDaily.

Ng, who is formerly Padungan assemblyman, added that Maszlee had shown his true nature by his recent stand on a pre-university quota system.

Maszlee had recently said the government would only consider removing quotas for university matriculation intakes if private businesses started to employ non-Bumiputera who could not speak Mandarin.

The PH government is continuing its policy of preserving the pre-university quota system known as matriculation, where 90 per cent of intake is reserved for the Bumiputera community.

Maszlee’s statement has not only resulted in him being lambasted by the national opposition coalition but also by his own coalition colleagues in DAP as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and political observers.

There are even calls for him to step down or to be removed as Education Minister.

“He (Maszlee) talked as if all the Chinese are rich and can afford private education. He does not seem to know what is the real situation on the ground.

“Maszlee is a big disappointment, and he is not fit to be our Education Minister,” said Ng. — DayakDaily