PETALING JAYA, Aug 7 ― The decision to delay the recognition of the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) for another five years pending a review is unnecessary, said the United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong) former president Datuk Vincent Lau Lee Ming.
This follows the announcement by Education Minister Maszlee Malik that his ministry will make a decision on the recognition of the UEC in the next five years.
Lau said he does not agree with the view of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration, citing that the five-year-review is unnecessary as an extensive review of the UEC had already been done under the previous Barisan Nasional administration.
“UEC had already undergone an extensive review by the ministry under the previous administration. What else is there to study on the matter?
“If they still insist to conduct a review with the intention to get a consensus from all stakeholders to agree with the recognition of the UEC, then it is impossible as some quarters have different political agendas to fulfill,’’ he said.
Lau also said he is already disappointed with the new administration as they had previously said they would seriously look into uplifting the status of the UEC.
“Both political coalitions from BN to PH had previously put into their manifesto to recognise the UEC. BN did not recognise the UEC before because they had taken political input into consideration.
“Now it seems the new education minister had also espoused to the same tune with the previous administration by stating they need more time to review the UEC. We never expect them (PH) to give excuses and delay the process further.
“We expect that the new government would have a fresh outlook on how Malaysia could move forward but in this respect, it is very disappointing,’’ he said.
Lau reiterates that the conversation surrounding UEC must be viewed in the sphere of education, rather than a political viewpoint.
“UEC has been used to create a sense of disunity and even possibly challenging the status of our national language, Bahasa Malaysia. We do not agree with these arguments as they do not affect either.
“This is an educational issue which essentially boils down to providing access to independent Chinese school students to our public learning institutions.
“Our public (learning) institutions have already accepted foreign education results. We ask that the government do the same for the UEC,’’ he said, citing that UEC had already been accepted to domestic private learning institutions and universities abroad.
