The Education Ministry has shelved a plan to cut the minimum number of mother-tongue language classes from 12 periods a week to 10, after intense backlash from proponents of vernacular schools.

Critics - including from MCA and MIC - had said that the plan would undermine efforts to teach non-Malay children their mother tongue.

However, while most of the backlash centred on a reduction in Chinese and Tamil classes in vernacular schools, the ministry indicated yesterday that the plan would have also reduced the number of Bahasa Melayu classes at national schools to a minimum of 10 periods per week.

Checks on Deputy Education Minister Wong Kah Woh's Facebook found several posts in Chinese saying the plan would have affected three languages. However, the fact that the Malay curriculum was also on the chopping block was underreported.