In a video posted on the Johor football team’s Facebook page, Tunku Ismail Iskandar is shown as saying:
“You have Indian schools, you have Chinese schools, you have Malay schools. From small, you have taught them against uniting. Do you expect them to unite when they grow older?
“In the future, there will be no more Indian, Chinese, Malay schools in Johor,” he added. However, he said Islamic religious schools would remain.
Provision of vernacular education is protected by the Constitution, but the Education Minister has the discretion to close vernacular schools.
Chinese-medium and Tamil-medium education has been a sensitive topic among political parties and the ethnic minority communities.
Tunku Ismail also linked vernacular education to the failure of the 1Malaysia concept of prime minister Najib Razak. Last month, the prince’s father, Sultan Iskandar Ibrahim called for Johoreans to unite as “Bangsa Johor”.
The prince said “Bangsa Johor” schools would teach children to unite and and respect each other.
He hoped the state government would provide education modules for Johoreans “in the near future, no matter this year, next year or the future”.