The Education Ministry has denied it plagiarised several short stories by local authors for use in its Form Five public examination syllabus.
In March this year, author Chua Kok Yee claimed that the ministry used three of his short stories – Embracing Your Shadow, Thieving Daughter, and Sambal Without Anchovies – from his 2010 anthology Without Anchovies, without permission.
Following Chua’s allegation, two more authors, Kee Thuan Chye and Robert Raymer, also claimed their work was plagiarised by the Education Ministry.
All three authors claimed they received no royalty payments from the ministry.
The Education Ministry, however, claimed that due consent had been given through Chua’s agent.
“The author had given consent to the Education Ministry through an agent – Sakata Profound Technologies for the publishing of the book Without Anchovies by Chua Kok Yee,” the ministry said in a parliamentary reply to Bukit Bendera MP Zairil Khir Johari, yesterday.
“The issue arose when the agent handling the matter did not take follow-up action to inform the writer,” the reply added, as quoted by The Malay Mail Online‘s Shazwan Mustafa Kamal.
The ministry claims that the matter has since been resolved, following a meeting with Chua.
On the matter of Kee’s and Raymer’s allegations, the Education Ministry asserted that it was not involved in any intellectual property rights disputes, as the work by the two authors – the poem Figure Forgotten Hours and the short story Neighbours, respectively – were not republished by the ministry, but by th publishers of an elective SPM Literature textbook.
“For the students who took the elective subject Literature in English, they need to buy the books (themselves).
“Therefore there is no theft and copyright issue,” the reply said.
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