Shadow Policy Committee

By Lau Weng San It is quite disturbing to read statement from several MCA leaders attacking Selangor State Government by implying that the Pakatan Rakyat (PR)-led state government only approves 12 Chinese applicants for study loan, when MCA leaders are not prepared to reveal how many study loans were offered to Chinese in states ruled by Barisan Nasional (BN). In fact, I was the first assemblyman who helped promoting the study loan scheme offered by the state government as early as in August 2010. All elected representatives in Selangor received letters and brochures from the state government requesting helps from elected representatives to promote such scheme and to recommend suitable students to apply for the study loan irregardless of race and religion. This prompted me to request for more details about the almost-interest-free study loan in August 2010. I also called a press conference to promote the study loan, which is opened to applicants from all races provided that the applica...

By Viktor Wong Since Datuk Najib Razak took over as prime minister, he introduced the 1Malaysia concept which is to be undertaken by his administration. But does he realize that, if he is serious about racial integration, it must be first by revamping the entire educational system? Has Najib ever looked into this first prior to his commencement of 1Malaysia? Almost all of us agreed that in order to foster greater racial integration today, it must be start from school with its educational system first. However, today we still hear reasons given by non-Malay parents for not wanting to send their children to national schools. Their core concern is the overly emphasizing of Islam in national schools and due to this the national schools has been increasingly dominated by Malay students which by now had turned these national schools into “Malay schools” or “Islamic schools” instead of its origin position as national schools. In the past and present, the federal government and its education m...