A GROUP of vernacular educationists opposed the Education Ministry’s plan to introduce “khat”, or calligraphy art, in the Year 4 Bahasa Malaysia curriculum for vernacular schools next year.

In a meeting this morning, the group said that learning khat does not match the requirement to learn Bahasa Malaysia and will not help non-Malay students to master the national language.

“We disagree with the Education Ministry over plans to include khat in the syllabus for students in Chinese and Tamil schools because it does not meet the requirements and it will not help non-Malay students to understand the Malay language better,” the group said after meeting at Dong Zong headquarters in Kajang this morning.

Representatives from 10 vernacular organisations from Chinese and Indian backgrounds attended the meeting.

The group said they will meet with Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching tomorrow to discuss the matter.

They said their rejection of the plan did not mean that they are against the Jawi script or the Malay language, but was due to the learning and teaching burden faced by both teachers and students.

“We are not against the multicultural elements in the country nor are we against Jawi script or Malay language. We feel with the new syllabus, the teachers and the students will carry a huge burden on their back,” the group said.

Khat will be introduced next year. According to Teo, this policy was decided in 2016 by the previous administration.

Of the 162 pages for the Bahasa Malaysia textbook, six pages will be dedicated to khat.

The move has also been met with resistance from a group of 138 DAP grassroots office bearers, including 13 state assemblymen, who want DAP cabinet members to object to the plans to introduce khat in vernacular schools.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, the group said vernacular school students are already learning “three languages and three writing systems”.

They said adding khat into the mix would make it “three languages and four writing systems”.

However, the Education Ministry in a statement on Friday explained that the introduction of khat was to foster beautiful writing.

It said khat was not an effort to introduce Jawi scripts and students would not be not assessed on it in examinations. – August 5, 2019.