An influential Chinese education lobby group today reiterated its opposition to the Vision School, saying its ability to achieve national integration is doubtful as long as unfair policies as practised by the government exist.

"The Vision School [concept] is based on the wrong premise that the existence of current segregated schools having various mediums of instruction had hindered national integration," said the United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia and United Chinese School Teachers Association of Malaysia, collectively known as Dong Jiao Zong (DJZ), in a press statement.

The Vision School concept was introduced by the government to place three primary schools of different teaching mediums — Malay, Mandarin and Tamil — in the same compound with the expressed aim of promoting integration and unity among students of various races.

Earlier this week, the first purpose-built Vision School opened in USJ15 with an initial enrolment of some 350 students in the three new primary schools.

"To the Chinese and Indian communities, despite having various modifications to the concept, the ulterior objective of the Vision School [plan] ... remains unchanged," the group said in its press statement.

However, DJZ insisted that the government had introduced Vision Schools so that it can implement a new system of school administration and structure to gradually achieve its "ulterior motive" of a monolingual education policy.

Distinct differences

The organisation added that more separate Chinese schools should be built in accordance with demand instead of Vision Schools, whose administration, modus operandi and legal status are distinct from those of the existing schools.

"The government has been marginalising and curtailing the development of Chinese and Tamil schools. For decades, the vernacular schools have been facing the problems of under-funding, poor facilities, insufficient teachers and overcrowding."

The organisation also asserted that to ensure the rights of the ethnic Chinese to education in their mother-tongue, parents should not send their children to the Vision Schools and instead demand for more Chinese schools to be built.

Last year, Chinese education lobby groups and parents successfully campaigned for the conversion of another Vision School complex in Johor Jaya to be converted to a full Chinese school.

However, similar efforts to call for the conversion of the USJ15 complex into a full Chinese school were unsuccessful.