Rather than erecting walls between them, there should be more communication between the government and Dong Zong, said Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching.
"I feel that we should have more communication between us instead of more and more walls between us.
"Only then (we) can we promote mutual respect and understanding in the community," she said at the sidelines of the launching of the national civics programme for schools today.
She was asked about Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad branding the Chinese educationists' group as "racist" yesterday.
Mahathir had lashed out at Dong Zong for claiming that the three-page khat lessons to be introduced for the Standard 4 syllabus was a form of "Islamisation".
Dong Zong had started a petition asking the government the scrap the plan to introduce khat lessons despite the Education Ministry reducing the planned six pages to three and making the lessons optional after strong pushback from the non-Malay community.
DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang said Mahathir was wrong to brand Dong Zong as “racist”.
He, however, said Dong Zong was not right to claim that the khat lessons for vernacular schools' Standard Four Bahasa Malaysia subject from 2020 were the beginning of Islamisation.
Bersatu's Youth wing has also launched an online petition seeking support for their call to ban Dong Zong.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Maszlee Malik, who also attended the launching of the national civics education programme today (above), declined to weigh in on whether he will support DAP's proposal to review khat issue at the cabinet meeting tomorrow.
"I am a Bersatu minister, not DAP (minister). You should ask DAP ministers in the cabinet," he told the media when met at the event.
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said he would renew his call on Wednesday for the cabinet to review its plan for the introduction of khat lessons. - Mkini
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