Anwar, PH’s hands tied over recognising UEC, say analysts

 

The government says it has no intention to recognise the Unified Examination Certificate for vernacular schools. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: The government’s decision not to recognise the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) should not come as a surprise given that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his coalition, Pakatan Harapan, have their hands tied by the current political situation, analysts said.

Wong Chin Huat of Sunway University pointed out that the government was made up of various coalitions, while James Chin of University of Tasmania’s Asia Institute said Anwar lacked the political capital to pursue policies that would not sit well among the Malay community.

On March 1, education minister Fadhlina Sidek said the ministry had no plans to recognise the UEC. In a parliamentary reply, she said this stand was based on the National Education Policy, and the Education Act 1996.

Recognising the UEC was among the key pledges in PH’s manifesto for the 15th general election (GE15).

Wong Chin Huat.

The coalition promised to make public higher education institutions recognise the UEC, on the condition that applicants had at least a credit for the Bahasa Melayu paper in their SPM examination.

Wong said it was understandable for Putrajaya not to pursue plans to recognise the UEC as it would not only be futile but could even harm the government’s survival.

“The government is vulnerable to Perikatan Nasional’s nationalist attack, it’s politically wise not to pursue it (recognising UEC),” he told FMT.

He said there was “no way” the government could recognise the UEC given that Anwar’s government did not win a majority of the Malay vote in GE15.

If the certificate was recognised, PN would use it to attack the government and claim that Malay-Muslim rights were being marginalised.

James Chin.

Chin said PH component DAP was the biggest loser as it had been vocal about recognising the UEC, adding that it now had a lot of explaining to do.

However, he said, not recognising the certificate was unlikely to discourage PH’s non-Malay supporters from casting their votes in the six state elections to be held in the next four months.

When PH was previously in government, it formed a task force to gather views on recognising the UEC, which was one of its pledges in its manifesto for the 14th general election (GE14) in 2018.

The task force was led by sociologist Eddin Khoo, and included then Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (Abim) president Raimi Abdul Rahim and then Dong Zong deputy president Tan Yew Sing.

However, all efforts towards recognising the UEC ceased after the change of government in February 2020, even though the task force had completed its report. - FMT