Datuk Seri Najib Razak today assured the Chinese that they need not worry about the future of vernacular schools as their rights were enshrined in the Federal Constitution, amid calls from his party men to abolish such schools.
"Don't worry about SJKC. The right to learn your mother tongue is already in the constitution and the country's laws," the prime minister said in his speech at MCA's 61st annual general assembly.
"In return, we hope that the (students) of SJKC learn the national language. Can you do that? Don't use the words 'gua' (Hokkien for 'I') and 'lu' (Hokkien for 'you') any longer," he said in jest.
His announcement was met with thunderous applause and a standing ovation from the MCA delegates at the party's headquarters here in Kuala Lumpur.
Umno leaders have in recent days called for vernacular schools to be closed down as they claimed these schools did not foster national unity.
Last Sunday, Umno Petaling Jaya Utara division deputy head Mohamad Azli Mohamed Saad had reportedly said that the party's general assembly next month should debate whether Chinese vernacular schools should be abolished.
This, he said, was because Chinese schools were being used by the opposition to breed racial and anti-government sentiments.
Two days later, Cheras Umno division chief Datuk Seri Syed Ali Al Habshee echoed the call, urging the government to abolish vernacular schools and to set up a single-stream school system which, he said, could help in fostering national unity in the country.
He said that abolishing single-stream schools was not meant to kill off the mother tongue of other races, but they could also learn those languages in national schools.
MORE TO COME
- TMI
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