KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 19 — The campaign for “A Truly Malaysian History” today urged the Education Ministry to heed its call to reform secondary school students’ history textbooks with a more balanced coverage of different religions and cultures in Malaysia, as well as on world civilisation.

“We call upon the government and relevant authorities to undertake quicker policy reform and urgent measures to ensure a broad and balanced perspective of major civilisations and events in the world history, accurate historical facts on Malaysia’s historical development from an unbiased viewpoint, and ensure due and fair recognition to the contribution of all communities towards the historical development of the nation,” campaign spokesman Dr Lim Teck Ghee, director of the Centre for Policy Initiatives, told reporters at the KL Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH) here.

The campaign, also known as Kempen Sejarah Malaysia Sebenar (KemSMS), took root on May 15 last year. It comprises a group of scholars and non-governmental organisations pushing for greater accuracy in history textbooks.

KemSMS chairman Datuk Thasleem Mohamed Ibrahim said the group has presented six reports to the special government committee to study the history curriculum and textbooks for secondary school. It hopes the panel will include its recommendations in its final report to the ministry some time in May.

The History Review Panel, whose members were appointed on May 3, is headed by Malaysian Historical Society chairman Datuk Omar Mohd Hashim while the dean of Universiti Teknologi Mara’s Administrative Sciences and Policy Studies Faculty, Datin Paduka Prof Dr Ramlah Adam, is the deputy chairperson.

The reports include improving and discussing the syllabus and history textbooks for high school and a review of current textbooks from the Sabah and Sarawak perspective.

It also included a document on secondary school history textbooks from the youth perspective.

“Present-day textbooks are not balanced … from the view of the world … and also from the perspective that the children are not getting the picture of world civilisation because the present textbook is slanted towards one civilisation, one religion and one community,” Nga Johnson said, representing the parents’ group.

KemSMS also counts professors and lecturers among its members, along with 12 NGOs including human rights group Aliran, KLSCAH and the National Interlok Action Team (Niat).

Lim had said the ultimate goal of the campaign was to come up with an ideal history textbook.

Thasleem, who is also Niat president, said the issue on reforming the history exams as well as making history a compulsory pass subject has yet to be tackled.

The priority now was to reform the history textbooks for secondary school students, he said.