Much ado about UEC

Lately, there have been a lot of discussions on Pakatan Harapan’s promise to recognise UEC or Unified Examination Certificate (UEC), which is issued to the graduates of Chinese independent high schools.

Currently, the UEC is not recognised by the government of Malaysia as an entry into public higher education institutions because the education system adopted by the Chinese independent high schools do not use Bahasa Malaysia as the medium of instruction, thus deemed as not fulfilling the country’s needs to foster national unity, which is in line with the principles of Rukunegara.

The UEC however, is recognised by Malaysian private higher education institutions as well as many universities overseas.

At the moment, while many Chinese counterparts of our society are urging the government to recognise the UEC, we have a great number of non-Chinese community members who are dead against it, threatening to hold protests if the government goes ahead to fulfil its manifesto.

Being a product of sekolah kebangsaan myself and having sent both of my children to sekolah kebangsaan, I admit I don’t know much about UEC and the education system as practised by the Chinese independent high schools in our country.

However, the more I read into the matter pertaining UEC, one question which keeps popping into my head is: if the parents who had sent their children to these Chinese independent high schools had done so because they did not have faith in our national education system, and upon the belief that these independent schools can provide their children with better education, why then are they making a big U-turn and demanding the government to recognise the UEC in order to apply for a place in our local public universities?

In other words, when our public schools are not good enough for them, what makes them think our public universities would be?

Surely, they could easily find any private higher learning institution around the country that recognises the UEC, no?

Since the question was boggling me, I decided to ring a few friends of mine who had sent their children to these independent Chinese high schools in order to understand the matter better.

Quality education

Not surprisingly though, most of my friends choose to enrol their children into pre-university programmes in private institutions right after high school. None of them needed the government to endorse the UEC for a chance at the public universities.

“Fa, these independent Chinese schools are based on a merit system. If you cannot retain your grades, you get kicked out. Over here, the kids work very hard to keep their grades up to stay in school. And that actually prepares them for the challenges in private universities.”

“We didn’t simply choose to reject public school, Fa. We just felt that it was important to give our children a good start in life – and we believe the culture practised in these Chinese schools that prioritises merit as well as encourages healthy competition between one another is what our children need to excel in, in the future.”

“You won’t believe it Fa, but some UEC students do get scholarships to go to Cambridge, Harvard and Oxford. That’s how good the students are – and it’s all because of the excellent education system.”

Talking to my friends helped me gain a better understanding about the quality of UEC, though not only did it not answer my initial question, it made me even more curious as to the reason why any ‘Grade A’ student would want to return to a ‘crappy’ education system, when there were many other better choices available.

So I continued asking around and finally found what I was looking for.

Prohibitive costs

Apparently, while these Chinese independent high schools cost approximately RM1,600 for enrolment and a further RM400 annual fee (as per Kuen Cheng High School), many parents could not afford the cost of local private universities, what more overseas ones – hence are hopeful to get their children into public universities.

As it is, there are already quite a handful of Chinese independent high school graduates studying in our public universities. The reason they are able to do so, is because most of these students do not only sit for the UEC examinations in Form 5; instead they also sit for SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia) and a year later, STPM.

“It’s really tough. After school hours, we go for UEC tuition and then SPM tuition. It’s not only expensive, but leaves us really exhausted. Anyway, it’s all for our future so we persevere,” said one student.

I must admit that I was gobsmacked upon hearing that. I remember how stressful it was for my own children to cope with the stress of SPM examinations alone. I cannot begin to imagine the level of stress these students from Chinese independent schools have to go through in preparing for two major examinations.

I suppose having UEC recognised by the government could help these students by taking away the burden of having to sit for both examinations – even if they have to just sit for a few selected SPM papers to earn the recognition (such as Bahasa Malaysia and history as proposed by the opposition).

Now that I clearly understand the reason behind the request for UEC to be recognised by the government, I am beginning to wonder if the resentment from some non-Chinese members of our society is due to them being fearful of some good competition.

I mean after all, these Chinese independent high school graduates seem to be moulded from young to perform well in education – they are indeed well above the standard of our public school students.

But then again, with our public institute of higher learning getting very bad rankings worldwide, perhaps absorbing these ‘Grade A’ students could help improve the standard of our public universities.

Healthy competition

You see, including a handful of excellent students into our public institutes would encourage healthy competition among the enrolments from public schools. And when these students begin to improve themselves, the lecturers in our public universities will be empowered to pick themselves up as well. Now, wouldn’t that be fruitful for every Malaysian aspiring to build a better nation?

If these graduates of Chinese independent high schools do manage to be absorbed back into our public education system by having the UEC recognised, clearly they would finally be able to mix and mingle with students of different races and religions in our country; moving towards the principles of Rukunegara.

Now, can someone remind me why anyone sane would oppose to the UEC being recognised?

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FA ABDUL is a passionate storyteller, a growing media trainer, an aspiring playwright, a regular director, a struggling producer, a self-acclaimed photographer, an expert Facebooker, a lazy blogger, a part-time queen and a full-time vainpot. - Mkini