Comment: Celebrating 200 years of Chinese education

Malaysian heritage: The 2009 class of students at SMK SamTet in Ipoh kicking off their month long merdeka campaign by singing the patriotic songs and performing the ‘ikrar’ at the school hall. — Filepic

IT is a sad irony that while the Prime Minister is casting aspersions on Chinese educationists and even threatening arrests, we are actually celebrating 200 years of the contributions of Chinese education to this country.

When I first joined Dong Zong (the National Chinese School Committees Association) in 1983, I was truly impressed by the fact that our schools had been nurtured by the community since their inception in the nineteenth century. Indeed, this achievement by Chinese Malaysians is worthy of national pride, for there are few if any comparisons of such a community-run education system in the world.