KUALA LUMPUR - MINORITY groups in Malaysia on Tuesday slammed a suggestion by former premier Mahathir Mohamad's son to dismantle Tamil and Chinese schools to forge racial unity.

Government lawmaker Mukhriz Mahathir said the vernacular school system practised in Malaysia fostered racial polarisation. He suggested all schools use the Malay language, the country's official language.

Education and language is a sensitive issue in a country where the majority Malay-Muslims live alongside ethnic Chinese and Indians who make up a sizeable minority.

Malaysia practises affirmative action for the Malays and indigenous groups called 'Bumiputra' who are favoured in education and business policies.

'My intentions are clear. We are in no way trying to assimilate the various cultural differences into a single mold,' Mr Mukhriz told AFP.

'I am suggesting that we look into the best way of instilling unity among the races at a young age and that would be in schools,' said Mr Mukhriz, who is vying for the influential youth chief post in the ruling United Malays National Organisation (Umno) party polls in March next year.

Both key Barisan Nasional (BN) government coalition partners, the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), said Mr Mukhriz's statement was unconstitutional, accusing him of playing the race card to canvas for votes.

'After all these years they still cannot come out of the doldrums and continue harping to the same tune of doing away with the vernacular schools,' MCA president Ong Tee Keat told AFP.

'This is something already enshrined in the country's federal constitution,' he added.

'Mukhriz is just one of the many who are now repeating the same polemics that are a few decades old, simply because of the advent of their party poll.'

MIC information chief M. Saravanan fears a 'huge backlash' among the country's ethnic minorities if the suggestion were implemented by the government.

'We have these schools for the identification of society. It is our right to study in our own language,' he told AFP.

'The government should instead encourage Malaysians to learn the languages of the other races in society,' he added.

Opposition parliamentarian Charles Santiago from the Democratic Action Party said Mr Mukhriz's statement showed a lack of sensitivity to non-Malays and argued that it was the race-based policies practised by the government which hampered national unity.

'Mukhriz should be deeply ashamed for politicising mother-tongue education to further his career in ruling Umno,' Mr Santiago said.

Malaysia presently runs a dual education system where national schools use either Malay as the medium of instruction or separate Chinese and Tamil schools which use Mandarin or Tamil.

Vernacular schools have long been championed by the Chinese and Tamil race-based component parties in the BN to preserve their identity and culture. -- AFP