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<h1 class="entry-title">UEC itself is not the problem</h1>
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<div class="gmail-td-post-author-name"><div class="gmail-td-author-by">By</div> <a href="https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/author/fmt/">FMT</a><div class="gmail-td-author-line"> - </div> </div> <span class="gmail-td-post-date gmail-td-post-date-no-dot">August 30, 2018</span> </div>
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<p><strong><img class="gmail-aligncenter gmail-size-full gmail-wp-image-936342 gmail-td-animation-stack-type0-2" src="https://sync.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sekolah-cina-bernama.jpg" alt="" width="648" height="369"></strong></p>
<p><strong>By Dr Boo Cheng Hau</strong></p>
<p>Exactly 34 years ago, I accompanied a fellow student who was rejected
by my alma mater to see the admission director of the American
university. We were surprisingly told that she was rejected because she
had not sat for the UEC despite having completed 12 years of primary and
secondary Chinese-medium education, which is the usual and minimum
requirement for entrance into most American universities.</p>
<p>We were actually shocked by the fact that the UEC, just a few years
after its inception, was already recognised as a mandatory admission
requirement by this particular university for graduates of Chinese
independent secondary schools in Malaysia.</p>
<p>I was even more surprised when the admission director agreed to admit
my friend conditionally based on her secondary school results. She
would automatically be considered a normal admission if she obtained a
GPA of 2.0 or above in her first semester.</p>
<p>This small incident showed how a highly competitive, state-run
American university treated education as an opportunity to prove one’s
capability and willingness to learn instead of discriminating against
potential students to prove their worth.</p><div class="gmail-code-block gmail-code-block-2" style="margin:8px auto;text-align:center;clear:both">
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<p>The major reason for getting local public universities to accept the
UEC is to prove the government’s determination to do away with its own
ignorance and racial prejudice that (all) Chinese students can afford to
study at local private or foreign universities. It is also an
inevitable part of the process of democratising and decentralising our
education system, in which diversity will enhance the competitiveness of
our students in the job market, especially the Malays and those from
less privileged social groups.</p>
<p>In the cornerstone case of Merdeka University Bhd vs Government of
Malaysia (1982), both the High Court and Federal Court ruled that
Article 152 (1) of the Malaysian constitution merely maintains the use
and learning of mother tongues in schools, but they are not to be used
as mediums of instruction in learning any other subjects.</p>
<p>Article 152 (1) of the Federal Constitution expressly states that it
is a right to learn one’s mother tongue but the government of the day is
not obliged to allow any other subjects to be taught in one’s mother
tongue or any language other than the national language. Our Federal
Constitution does not affirm that one’s right to learn in one’s mother
tongue is a constitutional right.</p>
<p>The courts further ruled that no language other than the national
language can be used “as a medium of expression or communication for the
nation as such but only to the extent of preventing the erosion of
their use as a medium of expression within their respective
communities”.</p>
<p>It was apparently ethnocentric to classify all other “non-national”
languages as communal or tribal, distorting the fact that languages are
tools for communication in today’s ever-globalising society. Non-Chinese
can speak fluent Mandarin and vice-versa. Some Chinese can speak Tamil,
English, Iban or Kadazan. One has to accept the fact that the
constitution drafted by an elite Reid’s Commission composed of foreign
judges and law experts is basically dysfunctional in an increasingly
diverse Malaysian society in terms of education reform.</p>
<p>Peninsular Malaysia has never stopped being a multiethnic society.
One can hardly imagine that 110 languages were actually spoken among the
traders in Melaka 600 years ago. Malay has naturally been the lingua
franca. There was no legal restriction on the use of other languages to
make Melaka an international entrepot then, neither was there a need to
make Malay the national language to make it the most prominent language.
This history tells us our Federal Constitution in regards to preserving
a fair and multicultural society is now outdated in bringing Malaysia
forward as an advanced nation.</p>
<p>The High Court and Federal Court’s decisions in Merdeka University vs
Government of Malaysia (1982) prompted the constitutional experts for
post-apartheid South African constitutional reforms in the 1990s to be
specifically inclusive of 11 official languages, notwithstanding an
individual’s right to learn in his mother tongue, as opposed to two
official languages during the apartheid rule – that is, Afrikaans
(practically a Dutch-based creole) and English.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, our policymakers’ perception towards language is still
highly communal, tribal and nationalistic. English became an
international language after the rise of the British empire and
colonialism, and it has maintained its status as one of the world
languages for science, technology and socio-economic advancements. No
one would treat it as the language of a single race or give it a
communal identity. For the same reason, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean
have become important languages in many countries due to those nations’
increasingly leading role in science, technology and socio-economic
advancements.</p>
<p>In Malaysia, many non-Malays speak Malay fluently and the number is
rising. The number would rise even faster if Malaysia and Indonesia
became newly industrialised countries. Like any other world language,
Malay would become a popular choice for a second language in the future
if Malay internationalist views rebranded it as a language of
socio-economic importance worldwide.</p>
<p>Many have misperceived the US as a monolingual country where English
is the only “official language”. They argue that English being the only
medium of instruction in the American education system has elevated its
leading role in science and technology advancements. It was even cited
as a vital piece of evidence by the author of “The Malay Dilemma”, Dr
Mahathir Mohamad, for his argument that since the US is a great
monolingual nation, Malaysians would be great and united as a nation if
we embarked on a Malay language-only education policy and “satu bangsa
satu bahasa” as a slogan in his Umno’s propaganda.</p>
<p>In reality, one-language policies and race-based nationalism do not
unite any multiracial, multicultural nation. Instead, they often divide
nations severely as evidenced by the civil war in Sri Lanka. On the
other hand, South Africa, Switzerland and Canada rescued their nations
from civil war with constitutional reforms by permitting multilingualism
and multiculturalism.</p>
<p>Switzerland went through a 400-year civil war before various “tribes”
agreed on a constitution permitting four official languages and a
multilingual education system. Similarly, Canada faced separatism from
French-speaking Quebec until both divides agreed on peaceful referendums
to decide on Quebec’s independence and to form a bilingual government.
South Africa went through a civil-war state under the apartheid regime
based on Afrikaner Nationalism and Afrikaan-language dominance until the
situation was resolved through democratic constitutional reform
instilling equality, multilingualism and multiculturalism
constitutionally.</p>
<p>The US Federal Constitution has never defined English as the only
official language although English is the de facto language of
documentation for all state and federal governments. There is an
English-only movement to make English the only de jure official language
despite the fact that 13% of Americans speak Spanish as their native or
second language and 7% speak a language other than English and Spanish.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Spanish is granted a special status in education in the
state of New Mexico. In fact, the power to administer the education
system is under the jurisdiction of state governments in the US. Even
though the language used in government documentation in 32 states is
English, the American courts view the language of government
documentation as a separate entity from the use of language in
education, which is seen to be more of an individual constitutional
right that cannot be entirely dictated by the state.</p>
<p>There are examples showing that state governments which administer a
diverse education system produce more competitive public education
systems. Besides being known for “public Ivy-League” universities such
as UC Berkeley and the University of Minnesota, California and Minnesota
administer competitive public education systems by investing in
multilingual and diverse public school systems.</p>
<p>There are even state-administered “immersion schools” in Minnesota
that teach all subjects in Spanish, Chinese, Japanese or Korean. Some
are bilingual schools. The public education system is not confined to
the purview of “tolerance towards diversity”, but instead utilises
diversity as a strength to make the public education system more
competitive. It is factually wrong to view the US as having a
monolingual education system even though it is predominantly in English.</p>
<p>Our leaders should view our language policy from an international
perspective instead of a race-based nationalist perspective. In regards
to an international perspective of our language policy, we could view
ourselves as respective governments in resolving peaceful constitutional
reforms with southern Thailand and the Philippines’ Moro separatist
movements. Perhaps both countries should adopt the Canadian approach in
resolving Quebec separatism and consider a constitutional reform which
admits the language and culture of Patani Malay Muslims and Mindanao’s
Moros as the constitutional rights of the respective countries rather
than suppressing them.</p>
<p>If Patani Malays and Moro Muslims as minorities in each of their
respective countries should be allowed to have their languages and
cultures constitutionally recognised in order to bring about the
peaceful settlement of a long-standing civil war, can local Malays be
open-hearted enough to allow other native cultures and languages to be
officially and constitutionally recognised? This can happen only if they
view themselves as Malay internationalists rather than narrower
race-based Malay nationalists.</p>
<p>Strictly speaking, it is a dysfunctional, unrealistic constitution
more than the UEC itself that is causing the actual problem. Not only
are we a multilingual and multicultural nation, the ever-changing world
scenarios have made us learn languages other than English and Malay in
order to catch up with the latest tide of globalisation. The UEC
represents the foresight of those who created it as it has become a
well-recognised alternative pathway to both English and Mandarin-medium
international universities for even Malay and other non-Chinese
students.</p>
<p>There are myths about the UEC which should be clarified before any further meaningful discussions can take place:</p>
<ol><li>UEC subjects are conducted not only in Mandarin but also in English and Malay;</li><li>UEC English grading has been pegged with GCE O-Levels English;</li><li>Initially, UEC Chinese language grading was not recognised by
universities in PROC, and UEC holders had to sit for Han Yu Shui Ping
Kao Shi or Mandarin Standard Examination like any other foreign students
who spoke a second language. As a modus operandi, UEC Mandarin was
recognised as a direct admission standard after some years of pegging
study.</li><li>Interestingly enough, GCE O-Levels Bahasa Melayu as either a first
or second language is recognised by Malaysian authorities as on par with
SPM Malay despite all other subjects being conducted in English,
notwithstanding the fact that UEC’s Malay papers are tougher than that
of GCE O-Levels.</li></ol>
<p>The former administration’s refusal and the present Pakatan Harapan
government’s reluctance to peg UEC Malay to SPM Malay reflects the very
much ingrained racial prejudice and politically motivated ignorance of
the powers that be towards the multilingual UEC, the sociocultural and
economic values of which have been recognised by many foreign
universities.</p>
<p>It is its investment in diversity that has made the US stay ahead of
many other nations in terms of technological innovation and economic
advancements. As Mahathir’s beliefs have had great influence on the
highly centralised Malay nationalist education policy implemented so
far, it is important that we correct certain misperceptions and
misinformation in “The Malay Dilemma” before we move forward with a far
more effective and long lasting education reform.</p></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div></div>