KUCHING, Jan 5: Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) is disappointed with Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for stating that the federal government had to consider all races and resolve the issue of unequal wealth distribution before recognising the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC).
Its Women chief, Kho Teck Wan, recalled that the UEC recognition process used to only involve discussions between the education minister and the United Chinese School Committees’ Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong), and the key topic was around the requirement of having credit in Bahasa Malaysia and Malaysian History.
But now issues such as racial sentiments, unequal wealth distribution, the unity of the people and the status of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language are being thrown into the mix, thereby making the recognition of UEC very complex.
On a personal level, Kho admitted being disappointed that the previous federal government did not recognise the UEC, but she was glad that UEC is recognised in Sarawak.
She urged all quarters involved in assessing the UEC recognition to put aside their differences and seriously look into recognising it once and for all.
“After all, the certificate is well recognised by majors universities around the world. The parties involved in recognising UEC should emulate Sarawak’s decision. Sarawak has recognised UEC since 2015. And not only that the decision did not disrupt social harmony, it actually made Sarawakians proud to be Sarawakians,” Kho said in a statement today.
In response to Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii’s remark that SUPP had failed to get the UEC recognised when they were part of the ruling BN government for decades, Kho argued that it was Pakatan Harapan (PH) leaders themselves who had pledged to recognise the UEC when they come to power.
According to Kho, blaming the previous government seemed to be Bandar Kuching MP’s default response to any failed promise by the PH government.
“Before blaming the previous government, YB Kelvin should know that BN was formed in 1973 and the current prime minister had lead the BN government for 22 years out of the 45 years of BN ruling.
“The current prime minister was also the Minister of Education from 1974 to 1978. PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was the Minister of Education from 1986 to 1991 and current Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was the Minister of Education from 2009 to 2015,” Kho pointed out. — DayakDaily
