PETALING JAYA: Malaysian Indian Transformation Unit (Mitra) special taskforce committee chairman R Ramanan has slammed Dr Mahathir Mohamad over the former prime minister’s call to shut down vernacular schools.
Mahathir, who had previously claimed that the vernacular school system had divided the country, yesterday said abolishing such schools would be the best way to reduce the racial divide.
Describing Mahathir’s call as “seditious”, Ramanan urged the veteran politician to stop making “inflammatory statements which bring no value to national unity”.
“It is not vernacular schools that cause national disunity. It is politicians like Mahathir,” said the Sungai Buloh MP in a statement.
“Mahathir has chosen to see everything from a racial angle to ensure he is in the news.
“At 98 (years old), he should play the role of bringing Malaysians together instead of creating division.”
The PKR deputy information chief urged Mahathir to visit vernacular schools to see how their programmes and syllabus contribute to nation-building.
In an Utusan Malaysia report yesterday, Mahathir said that one of the best ways to close the racial divide is through education and abolishing vernacular schools was among the measures that could be taken to achieve this goal.
He also claimed there were “certain races” who refused to enrol their children in national schools as they were akin to religious schools.
However, he said, even if the situation improved in national schools, ethnic minorities would still avoid enrolling their children in them.
Last year, a High Court in Kota Bharu ruled that vernacular schools were constitutional. - FMT
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