Khir's Proposal On Vernacular Education

SHAH ALAM, May 19 (Bernama) -- Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo today suggested that Chinese and Indian schoolchildren attend the national school in the morning and learn their language, culture and religion in their vernacular school in the afternoon, as a step towards greater integration as well as to "move forward".
He said the Malay schoolchildren were already practising this, adding that they attended the national school in the morning and learned about religion and little of Arabic in the Sekolah Agama Rakyat in the afternoon.
By learning together under one roof in the morning, the Malay, Chinese and Indian schoolchildren could compete with one another in education as well as learn and understand one another's culture and, at the same time, they would be able to learn their mother tongue, culture as well as religion in the afternoon in the vernacular school, he told reporters after launching the Selangor Teachers' Day 2007, here.
"In this way, we will see that we move as one society of various races having the same vision and mission. At present, we see that there is no convergence and mixing among students, and this gap will become a problem for us," he said.
Mohamad Khir said the leaders of every community must open their mind on this for the sake of the nation which had attained 50 years of independence, and added that he was afraid of what would happen over the next 50 years if this integration issue was not ironed out.
"We have to think about the future. Let us do something; let us open our mind to this suggestion. I think there is no harm," he said.
Asked whether his idea was to help integration, Khir said: "Not only that, I think to move forward we have to move into this angle. Besides, we can maintain our sekolah jenis kebangsaan (national type schools)."
He said he saw some deprivation at present because Chinese and Tamil schools were not fully aided government schools and proposed that they use the funds for them to develop their own curriculum in the vernacular school after the schoolchildren attend the national school.
He said the Chinese, Indians or Malays should not be worried about the idea because they still had the avenue or platform to preserve their religion, language and cultural heritage.
Mohamad Khir also said that he had yet to receive a report on what had caused the food poisoning at the Sekolah Rendah Jenis Kebangsaan Tamil Vallambrosa in Klang last Wednesday. About 100 students had vomited after taking "nasi lemak" and rose-flavoured drink served at the canteen during the Teachers' Day celebration at the school.
"If it is from the canteen, we should change the operator of the canteen immediately. There is no second chance for them," he said.

tunku : A VERY GOOD IDEA, but to implement it we need stern stand and just do it as there will always be those who will oppose to this kind of idea. I believe if all malaysian studies in same school we'll have greater integration. Now our level of integration is too low.