Prof James Chin: Making BM mandatory won’t refrain rightists from squabbling over UEC

 

RENOWNED political commentator Prof James Chin has cast doubt that the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) controversy will cease as per Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s claim now that Bahasa Malaysia (BM) and history subjects have been made compulsory for students seeking entry into public higher education.

This is given that right-wing Malay groups will still find reasons to argue that UEC is threatening the status of BM as the national language and national unity, according to the inaugural director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania.

“They oppose UEC mainly because it uses Mandarin as the main teaching language and it serves mostly the Chinese community,” countered Chin in a recent Facebook post. “Madani understands this. It’s a political issue and not about improving education quality.”

Recall that PMX had on Tuesday (Jan 20) revealed that BM and history subjects are to be made mandatory at international schools, religious schools and all Chinese-stream schools, ie UEC.

UEC dilemma elaborated

With such move, PMX contended that circumstances surrounding the UEC debate had fundamentally changed with the vast majority of students from Chinese independent schools already sitting for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) BM/history papers alongside their UEC qualifications.

Ironically, PMX’s announcement came a mere 24 hours after His Majesty Sultan Ibrahim, King of Malaysia’s decreed in his royal address at the opening of the 2026 parliamentary sitting that Malaysians who are unwilling to accept BM as the national language should not live in this country.

Delving further, the Sarawak-born Chin also expressed concern that forcing “official history adoption” will make things worse (veteran historian Ranjit Singh Malhi has exposed tendencies ‘to black-out’ contributions of non-Malay communities from current mainstream history syllabus).

“These textbooks push political indoctrination by heavily promoting the idea of a ‘social contract’ that locks in divisions between the Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera communities,” lamented. Chin who is also the senior associate at the Tun Tan Cheng Lock Centre for Social and Policy Studies of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR).

“It creates and maintains two permanent classes of citizens with state privileges for one group, thus making the other group feeling politically inferior. The idea is to brainwash both the Bumi and non-Bumi from a young age.”

‘Malays need to improve their formal BM’

Concurring with Chin, political observer Dr Peter Jebaseelan Jesudason elaborated that the UEC non-recognition has been purely political “to shut out UEC holders from the public university system”.

“Given that UEC students are from the Chinese stream, this fact was exploited by racists, right wing xenophobes and politicians on both sides of the divide who falsely tried to portray the DAP which supported the UEC recognition as being unpatriotic and not accepting the Malay language,” reckoned the consultant cardiologist.

“The issue was used by successive governments to play the race card by portraying the Malaysian Chinese UEC students as chauvinists who rejected BM and who were not conversant in the national language.”

Dr Peter Jebaseelan Jesudason (Image credit: Malaysiakini)

Added the good doctor who is also an avid supporter of Malaysiakini in the news portal’s subscriber-only comment section:

Sadly, even Madani politicians like UMMO Youth chief Datuk Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh were vitriolic opponents to the recognition of the UEC despite the fact that the foreign A-Levels and IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) examinations were recognised.

Little did they reveal to the public that an overwhelming percentage of UEC students follow the national curriculum as well.

UEC students who are Malaysian Chinese have an impressive overall pass rate of more than 96% in SPM Bahasa Malaysia with a 90% pass rate for SJKC Chinese schools and a 75% pass rate for SMK schools where the vast majority are attended by Malays.

Based on the SPM BM pass rate statistics, it would appear that the Malays need to improve their knowledge of formal BM as they are lagging behind the Chinese whose mother tongue is not even Malay.” 

- Focus Malaysia