THE national anthem Negaraku should only be sung in Bahasa Malaysia, said Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, after a video of schoolchildren singing it in Mandarin at a vernacular school in Seremban emerged.

He said translations of the anthem in school textbooks are purely for educational purposes.

“We cannot sing the national anthem in other languages but translations in books are for non-Malays to understand it, not to sing it,” he said today in Langkawi after attending a programme with local Pakatan Harapan leaders in his constituency.

Last week, a short video of pupils singing Negaraku in Mandarin has caused a stir on social media.

Negri Sembilan education, entrepreneurship, investments and industrialisation committee chairman Mohamad Rafie Ab Malek said the pupils involved were in standard five.

“The investigation found that the teacher had translated Negaraku to help them understand the national anthem better.”

However, he said, the national anthem could only be sung in Bahasa Malaysia.

The Education Ministry said on Friday that it will not compromise on any breach of the constitution, when it comes to the national anthem.

However, the New Sunday Times today reported that standard five history textbook for vernacular schools have been carrying the translated lyrics of Negaraku since at least 2014.

A copy of the Education Ministry-approved textbook for vernacular schools obtained by the daily showed that Negaraku was translated into Chinese and Tamil for vernacular schools.

Both the Chinese and Tamil textbooks were published by Dewan Pustaka dan Bahasa and have been around since 2014.

Wo De Guo Jia or Negaraku can be found on page 128 while the Tamil version, too, is published on page 128 of the history textbook. – December 8, 2019.