Letter to the Editor.
Contrary to what Wong Chun Wai suggests (On the Beat 14 December 2008) the Malaysian Constitution does not guarantee that a community’s mother tongue can be the medium of instruction in the national school system. What it does protect is “the right of the Federal Government or of any State Government to preserve and sustain the use and study of the language of any community in the Federation”. (Article 152(1) (b) At the same time, it states that “ no person shall be prohibited or prevented from using (other than for official purposes), or from teaching or learning, any other language.” (Article 152 (1) (a). This provision is of course in relation to Malay as the sole official and national language.
The Malaysian Constitution’s position on the right to teach and learn, or to use and study a language, is consonant with universal human rights principles. These principles should be distinguished from the argument that the use of one’s mother tongue as a medium of instruction is a constitutional right. Chun Wai’s erroneous stance appears to echo what the MCA’s Legal Bureau Chairman, Datuk Leong Tang Chong had said in the Star on 4 December 2008. He had given the false impression that Chinese as a medium of instruction in the national primary school system was a constitutional right by inserting the word “in” in Article 152 (1) (a), that is, … “ or from teaching or learning in any other language”. This is an obvious distortion of the Constitution. It changes the entire meaning of Article 152.
I would like to think that both the MCA leader and the Group Editor-in-Chief of the Star made a genuine mistake.
Chandra Muzaffar.
Kuala Lumpur.
17 December 2008.