Chinese education development group Dong Zong was told to ask the current government about recognising the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) instead of taking a former education minister to task over the matter.
Describing himself as an "ex" of Dong Zong, former education minister Maszlee Malik (above) said on Twitter he is no longer in the government and that the group should ask their "new lover".
While he did not name the "new lover', he uploaded a photo of Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob in which the premier purportedly accused Dong Zong of being racist and had challenged the government to ban the group.
In August 2019, Ismail Sabri had echoed an accusation by then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad who labelled Dong Zong as a racist group.
Ismail Sabri also accused the group of stoking racial tension by questioning the special privileges of the country's Malay-Muslims.
“Do not be surprised if Dong Zong's behaviour invites a racial clash such as that which took place on May 13, 1969.
“Dong Zong, don’t be the Chinese extremists who finally break the Malay-Muslim anger that can incite racial division,” Ismail Sabri had said.
This was after the group launched a petition against the teaching of Jawi calligraphy to Standard Four pupils.
The petition was launched despite an Education Ministry decision to make the lessons optional and reduce the number of pages on the topic to three in Standard Four textbooks.
"Dear DZ (Dong Zong), I know you still can’t move on. I still remember how you were so frantically in love with me during the ‘Jawi’ issue (which apparently you said OK now)," tweeted Maszlee yesterday.
"I’m no longer in the government my dear, please ask your new lover… he’s in charge now," added the Simpang Renggam MP.
Maszlee was responding to Dong Zong president Tan Tai Kim who reportedly urged the MP, former deputy education minister Teo Nie Ching, and the UEC task force to explain why they failed to submit a report on recognising the UEC to the ministry on time.
The UEC task force was set up in October 2018 by the then Pakatan Harapan federal government which had pledged to recognise the education certificate in its 2018 election manifesto.
The report was supposed to be presented to the government but was postponed several times until the Harapan government collapsed following the Sheraton Move political coup in February 2020.
In October 2020, then education minister Mohd Radzi Jidin said the ministry has not received any report from the task force and that it had ceased to exist after Feb 29, 2020.
Malaysiakini has attempted to get Tan to comment on Maszlee's remark. - Mkini
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