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Media Statement  
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Parliament, Wednesday) : Comments and reactions to the National Education Blueprint 2006-2010, which was launched by the  Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi yesterday, will only come after it has been studied and digested.

Although the Bahasa Malaysia version of the blueprint is available on the Education Ministry website, Education Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein should make immediate arrangements to supply Members of Parliament with the blueprint in Bahasa and English.

However, a first and preliminary question can be asked:  Can the National Education Blueprint 2006-2010 produce united and towering Malaysians to enable the nation to compete with the rest of the world when it is the first official document to reject the Bangsa Malaysia objective of Vision 2020 after the concept  has been disseminated in the schools and universities for 16 years?

In the introductory  chapter of the Blueprint, the very concept and objective of the first of the nine  challenges of Vision 2020 to create a “Bangsa Malaysia” is conspicuously omitted  and radically substituted by  the term “Negara Bangsa” – “a Malaysian nation and race”.

The original concept and objective of “Bangsa Malaysia”  embedded in Vision 2020 is still available  on the Prime Minister’s website elaborating on Vision 2020, but a policy decision seemed to have been taken by the Federal Government to abandon and drop all references to “Bangsa Malaysia” after its denunciation by the Johore Mentri Besar, Datuk Abdul  Ghani Othman at a Umno Johore conference in early November last year -  a run-up to the “fire-and-brimstone” Umno and Umno Youth general assemblies the following week, with its unprecedented damage to half-a-century of Malaysian nation-building which the country has not recovered.

The National Education Blueprint 2006-2010 is the first official document to drop and replace “Bangsa Malaysia” with the nebulous term of “Negara Bangsa” or “a Malaysian nation and race”.

The Prime Minister should explain whether a policy decision has been taken by the Federal Government to submit to the objection of  the Johore Mentri Besar who had claimed that there was no justification for the concept and objective  for a united and single Bangsa Malaysia or a Malaysian race, when the constitution provides clearly for Malays as “the pivotal race”.

Is the Federal policy change to abandon the concept and objective of Vision 2020 for a Bangsa Malaysia endorsed by the Cabinet after a full discussion and debate?  When was such a policy decision made by the Cabinet?

Are all the Cabinet Ministers, in particular the leaders from the other Barisan Nasional component parties of MCA, Gerakan, MIC, SUPP and others able to publicly justify their support for the abandonment of the Vision 2020 concept and objective of a Bangsa Malaysia, not only in the National Education Blueprint 2006-2010 but as a Federal Government objective and policy?

(17/1/2007)