The tantrums of the Education Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein in the past few days, accusing the Chinese educational bodies Dong Jiao Zong of being “not sincere” and declaring that “it’s not the end of the world” if he did not meet the Dong Jiao Zong leaders or that the government will not protect Chinese education have rightly been criticized by many as manifestation of his “arrogance of power”.

But these tantrums also show his “puerile” dimension. It is time Hishammuddin stop being “childish”, be conscious that he is charge of one of the most important ministries in government and begin to conduct himself as Education Minister for all Malaysians and all streams of education by setting an early date for a meeting with Dong Jiao Zong in keeping with the Prime Minister’s injunction to all Ministers to “hear the truth” from the people and all sectors of Malaysian society.

I still wonder why Hishammuddin “blew his top” on Tuesday, openly accusing Dong Jiao Zong of being “not sincere” for laying down conditions for a meeting with him, which has been proven to be untrue by Dong Jiao Zong.

Was Hishammuddin misled by Chinese newspaper reports that day on the ten resolutions of the Jiao Zong 2007 Annual General meeting calling, among other things, for:

• Revision of the National Education Blueprint 2006-2010 to make it compatible with Malaysia’s multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-lingual characteristics;
• Repeal of the “final objective” of the national education policy to have only one language as medium of instruction at all levels of the education system.
• Review of the use of English to teach mathematics and science from Primary One;
• Re-opening of Damansara Chinese Primary School; and
• Adequate trained teachers and fair allocation of funding for Chinese primary schools.

As Hishammuddin does not read the Chinese newspapers, was the Education Minister who is also Umno Youth leader misled in “blowing his top” at Dong Jiao Zong on Tuesday. If so, who was responsible for misleading Hishammuddin? To the Malaysian public, if it is not Gerakan, then it must be MCA. Read the rest of this entry »