By Peter Sibon
KUCHING, Jan 3: Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s stand on the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) has made the Chinese community feel cheated as it was in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) election manifesto.
Federation of Chinese Associations, Kuching, Samarahan and Serian Divisions president Dato Richard Wee said the U-turn in the federal government’s education policy regarding the UEC was “most unfortunate”.
“The recent announcement made by Prime Minister that they are not going to recognise UEC is totally dumbfounding, to say the least. In fact, we feel cheated because it was their (PH) promise in their election manifesto,” Wee told DayakDaily here today.
Wee, who is also chairman of the Board of Management of Kuching Chung Hua Middle Schools No. 1, 3 and 4, said it would definitely be a loss for Malaysia as UEC is accepted in at least 30 countries and by many prestigious universities, including Oxford and Harvard.
Despite the recognition of UEC being among PH’s election promises, the prime minister was quoted in a recent interview by Sin Chew Daily as saying that even though the federal government could recognise UEC with ‘a stroke of the pen’, it had to consider the feelings of the Malays and needed to address the gap of national wealth distribution first.
Wee pointed out that the issue of UEC recognition was always raised during every election by the DAP, MCA and Gerakan in the hope of securing the support of Chinese voters.
“But we hope that DAP will continue to fight for the recognition of UEC with the federal government; failing which, they have to come up with a full explanation to the Chinese community,” said Wee. — DayakDaily
