There is an interesting "battle of the wit" going on in Ipoh Barat between the DAP parliamentary rep YB M Kulasegaran and the MCA state seats rep (3 taikohs of MCA). See how an Indian Malaysian MP from DAP took up the challenge as a responsible people's rep to build a Chinese school.

MCA has always boast of promoting education but I cannot help to think that these are merely empty slogans to please the Chinese community who had always emphasized on education.

I remember watching an advertisement those days where former MCA president Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik gave a very practical advise to parents, "yi tian yi xiao shi, yi ding zuo de dao" (An hour a day, surely we can do it). It is to encourage parents to spend an hour a day with their children in their studies. A good and very down to earth advise.

And when TARC was established a decade ago, I thought it was really a good job to promote education especially when those days, college education was quite expensive.

Yet today, I do not see the difference between TARC and other private colleges, especially with the wide availability of loans and the lowering of local college education due to fierce competitions. One of my family members studied and graduated from UTAR but we do not think that their cost is very much cheaper than others or the quality of the courses is better than elsewhere.

Is MCA now all infrastructures and had lost their substance in terms of education?

When I was in Sungai Petani recently, someone told me that when confronted about a Chinese-type school running short of fundings and the government's refusal to support, a MCA leader merely quipped, "That's fate, accept it" and handed some money to him to go into the school fund.

I mean, it's great we can get personal donations from MCA leaders, after all most of them are rich lots, but this is not the route a people's representative party ought to take in regards to policy-making.

Many times the Chinese community is contended with charity, but I believe what we really need is a change. A policy change. We cannot depend on the ad hoc donations and fundings which do not affect real changes in the corrupted and unfair system. Our national and state representatives must be brave enough to represent the welfare of the people and that include standing up against unfair and unreasonable policies in regards to education.

MCA has again and again showed that they cannot do this, not now, not in the future. They have personal funds to go into pockets of the people, and such actions may shut our mouth for a while, but soon enough, we'll all realize that the REAL problems have not gone away and will come back to haunt us even more terribly because its resolution was postponed due to our initial receiving of "bribery", I mean charity from our leaders.

Way to go YB Kula, you showed the true spirit of Makkal Sakti - Ren min de li liang (The power of the people).

Photo from dapmalaysia.org