MELAKA: Chinese voters should stop giving any political party their unconditional support and be ready to speak out on issues, says lawyer Ang Woei Shang.
"We must not treat political parties as our fathers. When they are wrong, we tell them. When they do badly, we scold them," he said at a ceramah in Machap Umboo for the MCA candidate contesting the Machap Jaya state seat.
Ang, who campaigned for DAP from 2007 but never joined any party, said its record on Chinese education was among the reasons he turned against it.
He dismissed claims that a vote for MCA was a vote for PAS.
He argued that a stronger MCA would instead reduce Barisan Nasional's reliance on PAS.
Citing the Negri Sembilan state election, he said Barisan won 18 seats, one short of a simple majority, and could have governed on its own had MCA won three seats instead of two.
On education, Ang said proposed changes to the primary school curriculum could put pupils in national-type Chinese primary schools (SJKC) at a disadvantage and gradually erode their identity.
He said the Education Ministry's Nov 5 assurance that Chinese-language lessons would stay at 12 periods a week under the 2027 School Curriculum (KP2027) did not address English and Tasmik lessons in SJKC.
"If we do not look carefully at what is being introduced, we may eventually lose the very identity of our Chinese primary schools," he said.
Ang claimed a draft timetable circulated by a district education office cut Chinese lessons to 10 periods for Years One to Three, nine for Year Four and seven for Years Five and Six.
He said Deputy Education Minister Wong Kah Woh had only spoken about restoring 10 periods to 12.
"What about the seven and the nine? He says they still need to discuss it.
"Parents want to know what their children will be learning, how English will be arranged and how many Chinese-language periods there will be at each level," he said.
Ang said pupils weaker in Chinese would be less likely to take the subject for SPM, where he said only 15.1% scored an A, about half the rate for Bahasa Malaysia and English.
He said this would shrink the pool of future Chinese-language teachers and leave SJKCs short of staff over time.
Ang said the draft allocated four English periods a week for Years Three and Four in SJKC and three for Years Five and Six, compared with eight and six in national schools.
"Same schools, same syllabus. They get six periods, we get three," he said.
On Tasmik, or Quran recitation guidance, Ang said he had no objection to Muslim pupils attending the lessons but questioned why the subject had to be included in the core school timetable.
He said officials had told him the two periods could not be used to teach other core subjects to non-Muslim pupils, as Muslim pupils would miss those lessons.
Instead, non-Muslim pupils would spend those periods on physical education, art or music.
He questioned why time was being set aside for such periods when teaching time for other subjects was already a concern.
"Chinese pupils can only sit there wasting time," he said.
Ang, whose elder son is in Year Two at an SJKC, said he would consider moving his children to an international school if the changes went ahead.
MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong, who also spoke at the gathering, said the Education Ministry should provide a complete breakdown of the new curriculum across all six years of primary education instead of merely announcing that 12 Chinese-language periods would be retained.
Recalling his time as Deputy Education Minister in 2010, Wee said he had objected to a proposal for the Malaysia Negaraku textbook to be taught in Bahasa Malaysia across all primary school streams.
He said MCA's position was that subjects other than Bahasa Malaysia and English should continue to use Chinese as the medium of instruction in SJKCs.
"As the MCA representative, I made it clear to the ministry that this was our bottom line," he said.
Melaka goes to the polls on Saturday (Nov 14).
