SINGAPORE -- Chinese education authorities in multiracial Malaysia have rejected a government pilot project to merge the country's three different kinds of vernacular schools -- Malay, Chinese and Tamil -- into a single national institution, dubbed "Vision Schools," that would embody Malaysian identity.
The ethnic group claims that the proposal would lead to Chinese schools losing their cultural identity.
But Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, in disputing such a claim, is adamant that the proposal must be carried out irrespective of whether the Chinese schools would participate, as the other two streams of schools -- Malay and Tamil (southern Indian) -- have not objected, indicating their approval.