Chinese groups are not protesting the National Education Blueprint and have agreed to extra hours of Bahasa Melayu teaching in vernacular schools, claimed the education minister.

Muhyiddin Yassin said that the government had planned to raise Bahasa Malaysia lessons from 180 minutes (3 hours) a week to 270 (4 1/2 hours).

But after the Chinese associations objected, the government opted to lower this to 240 minutes, or an hour more than currently.

This would now be applied equally to both Tamil and Chinese primary schools in Malaysia.

NONEThis was one of the points of contention raised by Chinese associations after the first draft of the blueprint was released in September last year.

A compromise has since been reached, said  Muhyiddin, who is also the deputy prime minister.

He claimed that Chinese associations like Jiao Zong (United Chinese School Teachers’ Association) and Hua Zong (Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia) have agreed after discussions were held with them.

"The things that are said to be issues of contention, we have solved," Muhyiddin told reporters after launching the blueprint, aimed at setting Malaysia’s education goals for the next 13 years.

"So there should be no more protesting for the sake of protest."

Muhyiddin emphasised that this was extra teaching and was not to replace the teaching of mother tongue language at vernacular schools, which make up about a quarter of primary schools in the country.

He said the move was to narrow the gap in Bahasa Malaysia proficiency among these schools and national schools.

His ministry was also looking into the syllabus so that students, whose mother tongue is not Malay, could cope with the Bahasa Malaysia subject.

Earlier during his speech, Muhyiddin received applause when he announced that the basis of the new blueprint was the Education Act 1996, which guarantees the existence of  all types of  schools in multi-racial Malaysia.

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