Raja Permaisuri Agong Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah has defended the introduction of Jawi as part of the Bahasa Melayu subject in vernacular schools.
“Jawi script is the heritage of us Malays. Let us all use and uplift Jawi script so we can all read it easily.
“Who wields more power? The Education Ministry or the Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs)?
“My children also go to government schools. The PTA is only to take care of the welfare (of students) and quality of lessons the teachers are providing in line with the syllabus,” she said in a series of tweets on her personal Twitter page last night.
The tweets were all written in the Jawi script.
Earlier this week, Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching had reportedly said the teaching of Jawi in vernacular schools was subject to the approval from the PTA.
Previously, the queen had said it was an advantage to not only learn Jawi but also other additional language skills.
“It is no loss learning Jawi or other languages and calligraphy,” she had said.
The introduction of Jawi into school syllabus has been a polarising issue.
It has met resistance and criticism from certain quarters, such as from Chinese educationist groups Dong Zong and Jiao Zong, who had initially planned a congress to protest against this issue.
The congress was later cancelled after a court issued an order banning it.
The Jawi issue has also received support from various parties such as the Malaysian Muslim Students Coalition (Gamis) who had held a rally defending the teaching of Jawi script on the first day of the new year.
MKINI
I'm sorry Your Highness.
ReplyDeleteIntroducing a new subject into the education syllabus shouldn't be justified with reasons such as "the subject is the heritage of a particular race" and hence all races should try to learn it.
That's not how an education syllabus should be formed.
That's not how secularism works.
There are many other heritage that we can embrace too, such as Sanskrit, which Malay had borrowed at least 99 words from (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_loanwords_in_Malay )
Should we also start learning Sanskrit because the loaned words have high daily usage, and hence has deep cultural and heritage linkage?
No. Our education syllabus should focus on how to inspire individual's critical thinking, and hence the developed countries are those which focus on how to improve the STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects.
Pray tell us how many percentage of Malays are very jawi literate nowadays? Then if its a high percentage then go by all means teach them first before asking others to learn them. If jawi is your heritage then look at other kinds of your cultural heritage which is slowly being killed by your own islamic policy like by the banning of mak yong like in Kelantan and other heritage which no longer fit your islamist tastes. The baju melayu is slowly being replace by the Arab jubah, the kebaya by the Arab abaya and you name it. So let's say 40 Years or more down into the future suddenly you have a jolt which want you to regain back your heritage, then you start asking all and sundry to learn and acknowledge your heritage when it is you yourselves who leads to the dying of your own heritage.
ReplyDelete