Kho chastises Liew for insinuating permission to learn Chinese is a favour from the government

KUCHING: SUPP Women chief Kho Teck Wan has called out Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Liew Vui Keong for his recent statement that ‘one should be thankful to the government for the opportunity to learn Chinese.’

She pointed out that Liew, as the de facto law minister, should know very well that the right to learn one’s mother tongue is clearly stated in the Education Act 1996.

“Based on the Education Act 1996, Chinese or Tamil shall be made available if the parents of at least 15 pupils in the school requested that the language be taught in school. The same condition also applies to the indigenous languages,” she said in a statement yesterday.

She stressed that the right to learn mother tongue was the result of the perseverance of ‘our ancestors, who had fought persistently for the existence of our languages, cultural and heritage.’

“The minister of law should not talk as if the right to learn mother tongue is a charity granted by the Pakatan Harapan government,” she remarked.

Liew was recently quoted by a national Chinese daily that the people should not overreact to the introduction of khat to Year 4 students and that they should be thankful to the government for the opportunity to learn Chinese. PUTRAJAYA: The khat or Jawi calligraphy should be an elective subject and not part of the curriculum in schools, said former minister Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz.

“The question is, you want to make it (khat) a subject or elective? If elective it is fine; people are into this fine arts. Do not make it as though we are making you to learn khat; it is the most silly thing to do. There are other things that need to be learnt,” said the former international trade and industry minister.

She was speaking to reporters after her keynote address at Perdana Discourse Series 21 titled ‘Factors Impeding Malaysia’s Economic Progress and How to Overcome Them’, at Yayasan Kepimpinan Perdana here yesterday.

Rafidah stressed that khat is not Jawi, a language or a subject but rather is calligraphy like the Chinese calligraphy.

She said the Education Ministry should not make learning khat compulsory, but as an elective subject to increase knowledge and promote it for creativity.

Earlier, in her speech, Rafidah said she texted Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik regarding her objections on the khat issue following the ministry’s announcement recently that it would include khat in the Year 4 syllabus next year.

“When you force everybody to do calligraphy, I will be the first one to fail. I have no flair for all these artistic works,” she said. — Bernama