ABOUT 30 people held a candlelight vigil outside the Dong Zong headquarters in Kajang on Saturday evening to protest Dong Zong’s decision to bar three students from taking the Unified Examination.
It was earlier reported that the three students’ parents were among four persons who had sued the Chinese education movement for opening the Unified Examination to the students of SM Chong Hwa of Kuantan.
The High Court had ruled in favour of Dong Zong, or United Chinese School Committees Association, but the plaintiffs appealed the ruling and the case has gone to the Court of Appeal.
According to a report in China Press today, the group’s spokesman Cheng Kuok Guang said it was despicable for Dong Zong to resort to such a tactic to force the students’ parents to withdraw the appeal.
“They (Dong Zong leaders) care nothing about the future of the three students in the name of exercising their so-called autonomy. This goes against the very spirit of those Chinese educationists who started the education movement (to ensure the protection and development of Chinese education).”
He explained that the students’ parents took legal action to prevent a possible ban of the Unified Examination by the government for contravening the Education Act.
A participant of the vigil, Que Yong Chiang pointed out that when the government approved Unified Examination in 1975, then education minister Datuk Seri (now Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Unified Examination was a closed examination meant only for the 60 Chinese independent schools in the country.
This meant that it was not to be opened to other students, including those from SM Chong Hwa, which was not a bona fide Chinese independent school, he said.
The case of the three students opened an old wound with the former and current leaders of Dong Zong pointing fingers at each other.
Former Dong Zong deputy president Chow Siew Hon described the action of the current leadership as hooligan-like, and the latter responded by producing an old press statement showing Chow had supported opening the Unified Examination to SM Chong Hwa when he was Dong Zong No. 2.
