GEORGE TOWN, Aug 5 — Putrajaya should be focusing on strengthening science, English, technology and mathematics (STEM) subjects instead of forcing khat writing on primary school students, Gerakan’s Oh Tong Keong said.
The party vice-president said computer classes were cancelled in national-type schools and were turned into part of the co-curriculum instead of being part of the syllabus.
“Now they want to force primary school students to learn khat writing when learning computers should be the priority in this time and age,” he said in response to the government’s intention to introduce khat writing as part of the Bahasa Melayu subject for Standard Four students.
He said the government has been talking about the importance of STEM and training talents to meet Industry 4.0.
“Introducing khat writing instead of focusing on STEM seemed to contradict their earlier statements on the importance of STEM. How can khat writing help to train up talents for Industry 4.0?” he asked.
Oh, who is also Penang Gerakan chairman, stressed that Gerakan is not against the teaching of khat writing.
“There is nothing wrong with teaching khat writing but they must not force it on the students by making it part of the Bahasa Melayu syllabus,” he said.
He said khat writing can be introduced electively, as part of the co-curriculum.
He said the government may give assurances that students will not be tested on khat writing now but there is no guarantee that they will not make it a compulsory component of the public examinations like in SPM in future.
He said it would be an additional burden on vernacular school students to learn khat writing.
He added that it will also further burden teachers with extra workload of teaching khat writing.
“The reason that khat writing will bring unity does not make sense because that was what Bahasa Melayu is for, the national language is already taught in all schools and this is what everyone use to communicate among different races,” he said.
He also criticised Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for his remarks that the government did not bar other races from preserving the written script of their respective mother tongues so there should not be objection against the art of khat.
“The other races did not force their mother tongue calligraphy on the Malays but the government is now forcing this khat calligraphy on non-Malays,” he said.
He said if the government really wanted all races to understand each other through calligraphy then they should also teach Chinese and Tamil written scripts to all students.
Oh slammed DAP for not defending the minority in this issue by objecting against the compulsory learning of khat writing.
He pointed out that in 1984, DAP had vocally objected against teaching of khat writing in schools but now they seemed to stay silent on it.
“What is DAP in Pakatan Harapan? It is obvious they do not have any voice in it and have bow to Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia,” he said.
