CYBERJAYA, March 18 — PAS today promised to bring back the quota system for entry into public universities and to make the national language as the language for all subjects taught in the national education system if it wins the 14th general election.
PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang justified the promise to use Bahasa Malaysia as the medium to teach subjects in the “national education system” by citing a purported United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) study.
“Unesco conducted a study, all countries where the education used the mother tongue became developed nations — Germany, Japan, China, Korea.
“Countries that used foreign languages in their education used a longer time, there was a loss of time, and cannot produce sufficient academics,” he said after launching the manifesto for PAS and its allies Parti Ikatan Bangsa Malaysia (Ikatan) and Barisan Jemaah Islamiah Se-Malaysia (Berjasa).
“It doesn’t mean that we hapuskan (do away with) foreign languages. Foreign languages are important for learning knowledge from various sources, but to educate the citizens in a large scale, it must be the mother tongue — besides the national language, including the languages of races in Malaysia, the Chinese language, Tamil language and Iban language and others, those cannot be stopped,” he added.
Bahasa Malaysia is the national language but is not the mother tongue for all Malaysians, who come from diverse ethnic groups.
As for the promise to reinstate the quota at public institutions of higher learning, PAS said in its 25-page manifesto that it will “balance the education disparity between the rich and the poor, as well as the urban and rural” Malaysians.
PAS did not elaborate however on the nature of the quota system that will be restored.
In 2002, then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had replaced the racial quota system for entry into public universities with entry based on meritocracy.
Also in the manifesto was the promise to abolish the debts of the existing federal study loan PTPTN borrowers as a first step towards free education; to review tertiary education policy, such as the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act and the Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional Act, to work towards free education.
PAS also promised to restore the function of MARA Junior Science Colleges (MRSM) and Fully Residential Schools (SBP) to empower the poor; and to provide free training at Institute of Teacher Education for private schools’ teachers.
The Islamist party also plans to increase the number of schools nationwide with a curriculum that integrates science and tahfiz or the memorisation of the Al-Quran; to restore the per capita grant assistance to private religious schools Sekolah Agama Rakyat (SAR), tahfiz schools, pondok schools and private schools; as well as to strengthen the use of waqaf or donations for all levels of the national education system.
The manifesto launch was attended by the PAS-led pact Gagasan Sejahtera’s leaders, including component parties Parti Ikatan Bangsa Malaysia (Ikatan) vice-president Datuk Seri Mohamad Badri Abd Rahman and secretary-general Tengku Mudzaffar Tengku Zaid; Barisan Jemaah Islamiah Se-Malaysia (Berjasa) president Abdul Kadir Mamat and deputy president Datuk Hashim Karim.
The manifesto themed “Malaysia Sejahtera” or for the wellbeing of Malaysia is in its first stage, and was launched 10 days after Pakatan Harapan launched its manifesto.
