Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim, chairman of The Parent Action Group of Education, PAGE
- “[Page] is of the view that this is yet another politically-motivated decision to appease and please Umno delegates at its general assembly, without any thought given to recent policy decisions that have been made by him on education thus far,” Noor Azimah said in a statement.
- She argued that Muhyiddin should have instead declared English a must-pass subject, as this would have “perfectly complemented” the MBMMBI (To Uphold Bahasa Malaysia, To Strengthen the English Language) policy set to come into effect next year.
- Noor Azimah said the decision to make passing History compulsory also did not gel with the government’s determination to move away from rote learning and overemphasis on exams, which some critics have blamed for Malaysia’s lack of innovation.
- “By now making history a must-pass subject, he is not only re-burdening the students but instead further magnifying ... the stress of not obtaining the SPM certificate because the student did not pass History, as opposed to Bahasa Malaysia which is justifiable!”
- She warned that unless History was enhanced by incorporating world history and given “serious housekeeping”, the move to make it a must-pass subject was unlikely to pay real dividends.
- urged the Education Ministry to review and mend what it called an “imbalanced” account of the nation’s history in existing textbooks favouring one race and religious civilisation before making the subject a “must pass” in school from 2013.
- “MCA has received feedback (or complaints) from parents that the History textbook syllabus tends to predominantly favour a particular race and religious civilisation, while using derogatory terms of ‘pendatang asing’ [foreign immigrants] on other races,”
- He stressed that the history taught in schools must be objective, rational and impartial to reflect the contributions of the different races and religious groups in the making of multicultural Malaysia.
- The MCA man said the new syllabi created should be free from influence of any one political group and urged History authors not to “introduce new terms which hint of racial supremacy or inaccurately suggest that vernacular schools impede national unity”.
- claimed that the government’s sudden interest was likely to be selective — emphasising Malay rights provisions and conveniently neglecting others.
- Pua said that the onus was on Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to form an independent advisory and review body to conduct a complete “overhaul” of the subject before it is made compulsory.
- “We fear that this new measure is a blatant attempt to indoctrinate our students with a narrow and biased interpretation of our Federal Constitution and our country’s founding history.
- “We call upon the DPM Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to first convene a independent advisory and review body comprising of representatives from the Bar Council, eminent retired judges as well as renowned academics on the history of Malaya,”
