PUTRAJAYA – Malaysia’s Education Minister Maszlee Malik is scheduled to call for a press conference on Thursday (Jan 2) following intense speculation that the controversial minister has been pressured to step down ahead of a minor Cabinet reshuffle.

MP Maszlee, 45, who is from Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia is expected to call the press conference at 4.30pm at his office here, with reports saying that he had decided to quit, The Star online news reported.

In a note to editors, Mr Maszlee did not give any indication as to what the press conference was about, with his aides not taking any calls from the media, The Star said.

The MP for Renggam in Johor state, a former academic, has been criticised for numerous issues including the introduction of Jawi in vernacular schools.

Tun Mahathir is expected to make the first reshuffle of his 19-month old Cabinet at the same time, with media reports saying it would be a minor reshuffle and possibly involving several deputy ministers.

Dr Mazslee, a first time MP, has attracted the most number of controversies since becoming minister in the Pakatan Harapan government, and based on media reports is by far the most unpopular Cabinet minister.

He has often been criticised for straying away from his main job of improving education standards.

He caused confusion and anger by saying all students should change their white shoes to black so these won’t get dirty easily; he pushed to introduce cashless payment in schools and wanted to set up petrol stations on five university grounds to encourage entrepreneurship. He had also asked hotels to let their swimming pools be used by schools.

In his first few months as minister, Mr Maszlee had to be told by the Cabinet to drop his presidency of the International Islamic University Malaysia. He was adamant for months that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, though it was a PH election promise not to have politicians as heads of universities in order to give them academic freedom.

The Jawi controversy and another involving a university exam paper were the latest involving his ministry.

Most Malaysians were surprised when the Education Minister in August announced it would introduce Jawi writing as part of the Bahasa Melayu period in Chinese and Tamil schools.

The move stoked racial tensions as the vernacular schools rejected the plan on fears of creeping Islamisation, while a section of Malaysian Malays said the minority-run schools should be compelled to learn the Arabic-script writing as part of living in Malay-majority Malaysia.

Last week, a northern Malaysian university caused an uproar after an exam question issued by it called controversial Indian preacher Zakir Naik “one of the icons of the Islamic world”.

Mr Maszlee tried to distance his ministry from the controversy involving the exam question issued by Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP). Mr Zakir is a Malaysian permanent resident who is wanted in his home country India for charges of money laundering and hate speech.

Mr Zakir has been banned by Malaysian police from giving any more public lectures, after he was deemed to have insulted Malaysian Chinese and Indians in one speech.

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