Shedding the old and ushering in the new, looking forward to the arrival of the 2016 brand New Year of hopes, signaling the good beginning of the New Year and we, all the fellow members of Dong Zong express the blessings of good tidings and our sincerest gratitude to you from all the sectors for the past year of your tremendous support and co-operations.
Following the new leadership being elected on 23rd August 2016, by the Extraordinary General Meeting, and also the successful election of the 30th Dong Zong Central Committee members, the long term chaotic factional struggle had eventually ended. I would like to thank many Chinese community groups for giving their spiritual and financial support in view of such difficult period of turbulence, and besides, many Chinese Independent Secondary Schools’ Board of Directors, principals as well as teachers who came to give us their words of support, of which we felt deeply indebted for their concern. I, as the chairman of Dong Zong new leadership, vowed to continue the 60 years of the traditional path of striving persistently for the survival and development of our Chinese education through the principles of collective administration and responsibilities, we are dealing actively in promoting various Chinese educational affairs, in order to assist Dong Zong to return to its right path, and to attain further glory of accomplishment!
Looking back at the year of 2015, Chinese education is in the midst of its prosperous advancement and its flourishing growth in student population. As a whole, the rapid increase of the enrolment of Chinese Independent Secondary School students within these ten years, triggered the problem of more demand than we could cope with the offer of adequate places for the students in the urban high schools but to the small scale Chinese Independent Secondary Schools in the outskirts and remote areas, they are faced with various problems which must be dealt with or resolved as soon as possible.
As for “hundred years of great planning, education is the first development and teachers are the key factor contributing to the schools’ education”. Teachers’ quality will determine the success or failure of educational reform. The development of Chinese Independent Secondary School will have to, apart from advancing to the development of academic professionalism, build up a team of qualified and professional teachers, we must also focus our concern in promoting the welfare of the teachers. The reason is because not only we can reduce the high turnover of teachers of Chinese Independent Secondary Schools, it also upholds the practice of cultural spirit of “honouring the teachers and respecting their profession”.
In 2016, Dong Zong will focus on one of the most important plans of the total review of the announcement made in “The Guiding Principles of Education Reform of Malaysian Independent Chinese Secondary Schools” formulated in 2005 regarding the Chinese Independent Secondary School Educational Blueprint and the financial support for assisting the small scale Chinese Independent Secondary Schools, hoping that these 3 plans will receive good response from various private sectors, especially the Board of directors of Chinese Independent Secondary Schools, principals, teachers & staffs, as well as the co-operation of patrons of Chinese education, together we help make efforts to accomplish all the plans.
In the 21st Century, entering into the era of globalization, the megatrend of the multicultural and multilingual has already prevailed globally, but to view Chinese or native language education as a threat and national liability is an outdated attitude and downright narrow-minded thinking. Today, every Malaysian must admit that even before and after the independence of Malaysia, whether multi-cultural or multi-cultural education or multi-lingual, they are the outstanding characteristics, whatever and wherever the four basic needs of every day’s clothing, food, shelter and means of travelling, and even education itself has shown “a hundred flowers blossom together” in profusion.
Chinese education is viewed as Malaysia’s precious possession, it has proliferated our nation’s various ethnic communities’ rich multi cultures, and in reality, becomes our nation’s valuable economical resources, this obviously is an undeniable fact. From the past to the present, the Chinese Independent Secondary Schools help the nation to nurture talents, producing professionals resulting in contributing to the extraordinary and positive human workforce.
In this era of globalization, as well as many Asian countries are opening up their doors economically and politically, this megatrend cannot be barricaded, even one tries to do so, in the aspect of economy, our nation is faced with greater and more pressures of attracting foreign investments, added with the oil crises that oil prices plummeted to an all-time low, and also weakened currency that affected our economy adversely. Malaysia cannot again, delude itself further and thought it is safe from the megatrend. Our government should not grow complacent to the unchanged old thought of deluding oneself or others to hold high esteem in single source stream policy, that single source stream culture is the tool to unite the people, and such mode of thinking is the best for all but instead, it is self-deceptive and a deceptive thought for others. Holding such outdated idea will be eliminated by the modern time and will be unable to face the advanced age of the fine recognition of pluralism.
Malaysia is facing with the serious problem of talent crisis and the problem is becoming more acute, not only there is emigration of talents, it also includes insufficiency in engaging personnel, the plight of incessant influx of foreign workers. The talent crisis has revealed the crises of industrial and economical development, we propose to the government to face the problems positively, solve the problems rapidly, should deal with the educational issues with more open-mindedness, open the doors on the threshold of educational issues. The monolingual education system has not been suitable for the educational development of today’s society, and also cannot cater for the fierce international competition.
Education inspires people’s wisdom, nurture the talents, promote social culture, motivate the nation to advance further and be geared to connect with the worldwide societies, monolingual educational system can no longer cater for international competitions, therefore it is high time that the authorities must treat the Chinese educational issues with even more broad-mindedness, view the mother tongue education system positively and the recognition of UEC qualification. Our government needs to deal with the Chinese educational issues with practicality and open-mindedness, encompasses the Chinese education and other native languages’ educations inclusively into the main stream of educational system, treating all with equality, together we assist our nation to nurture talents, build strongly our nation’s competitiveness. We hope the authority, Ministry of Education can grasp the opportunity to provide various ethnic groups with assistance and incentives. Apart from the full recognition of UEC qualification, our government authority can allocate funding to Chinese Independent Secondary Schools annually from the financial budget.
Entering into today’s new era of our global village, Chinese education especially regarding the development of Chinese Independent Secondary Schools, the path is not broad nor smooth for them, and at the same time amid the objective circumstance, it encounters further internal challenges, such as more expensive school fees, teachers’ resources, hardware and software facilities that need expansion, and besides, the international schools and private secondary and primary schools are receiving favourable preferences from the public which must be dealt with concern closely pertaining to their development.
We must draw our attention closely to their development. While we have to strengthen the requirements in terms of quality and quantity, we must at the same time, focus our attention to cater for their various aspects of development pertaining to the equal emphasis on the five Chinese educational principles, the development of students physically and mentally which is still the most important factor of concern. We believe, if Chinese education has already gone through such a long way of about 200 years of difficult journey of striving and struggling for its existence, hardships and struggles which we have managed to go through. Recalling the past history, beholding visions of the future, we must be prepared to face and curb greater challenges and problems, together we strive persistently to enable the Chinese education to reach higher level of success, moving forward to the new milestones.
Dong Zong, being the leading cultural and educational organisation, associating with our nationwide Chinese Associations and Chinese ethnic community groups, we unite together to strive for our fundamental rights as citizens, it is absolutely reasonable and understandable to fulfil our civil rights and obligations so common in any democratic country. Dong Zong must also stress that - “Unite all that can be united collectively as massive strength”, and this is the stand we always uphold. Dong Zong will continue to work and knit our ties closely with all the Chinese societies concerned to continually perform fully with our united strength.
Last but not least, I, on behalf of Dong Zong, wish the people of all sectors - A Happy New Year and hope that 2016 will be prosperous for our nation, and the people be at peace. May everybody have a good year filled with family bliss and contentment.