Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak assured MCA on Sunday that his administration will continue to defend the Chinese community's right to vernacular education. Speaking at the party's annual general assembly here, the Barisan Nasional chairman noted that recently there had been calls for Putrajaya to abolish Chinese-language schools, but said this was not in line with the ruling coalition's plural policy.

"That is not BN policy," he said, to a thunderous applause from MCA delegates at Wisma MCA.

"BN stands for policies based on multi-culturalism, multi-lingualism, and multi-ethnic and multi-religionism," he said in his officiating speech.

Calls to end vernacular education resurfaced recently after participants of a pro-Malay rally held on Sept 16 demanded the government abolish Chinese and Tamil schools, which they claimed to promote "racist" tendencies.

To date, leaders of the Chinese component of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, MCA, have voiced their protest against the message, noting that vernacular education is a right enshrined in the Constitution and that any attempt to abolish the system was illegal.

Najib said Sunday vernacular education was part of the policy born out of respect for all the races, and agreed upon in the "social contract" fostered by Malaysia's founding fathers including MCA's first president Tun Tan Cheng Lock.

The BN chairman said the coalition must and will continue to fight and uphold the social contract, which he said promotes moderation and progressive values that reject any form of extremism. "This is our foundation. We must reject any form of extremism. Whether it is violent religious extremism like in the Middle East or racial extremism," he said.