Federal Court decision should put vernacular schools issue to rest, says Dapsy Sarawak

The Federal Court’s recent ruling that vernacular schools in the country are constitutionally legal should put the issue to rest.

The Democratic Action Party Socialist Youth (Dapsy) Sarawak said following the court’s decision, there should no longer be any questions regarding the place of vernacular schools in the national education landscape.

In a majority decision on Feb 20, the Federal Court rejected the application of two nongovernmental organisations for leave to appeal against a previous court ruling, which found vernacular schools to be constitutional.

“This issue is already se led and no longer a fresh issue,” said Dapsy Sarawak youth leader Peter Hee.

Dapsy Sarawak said as social cohesion is the norm rather than the exception for Sarawak, vernacular schools have never been an issue in the state.

On Monday, it was reported that vernacular schools had become a contentious issue between Dapsy Melaka and Umno Youth.

This followed Umno Youth chief Dr Muhammad Akmal Salleh’s statement for a single-stream education system to strengthen national unity.

He had proposed a comprehensive assessment of the vernacular education structure in terms of curriculum alignment as well as implementation of national values, and mastery of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language.

Also on Monday, Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek said her ministry had no plans to revamp the current vernacular school education ecosystem.

While taking note of Muhammad Akmal’s suggestions, she said any action or decision to revamp the vernacular school education ecosystem must be based on the provisions of the Education Act.

“As I have stressed before, vernacular schools are recognised by the Education Act and we will uphold that,” she said.