Education Minister Maszlee Malik must immediately replace the partisan instruction requiring opposition lawmakers to apply for permission prior to visiting government schools.

Elections watchdog body Bersih today said the directive should be replaced with non-discriminating guidelines applicable to all politicians from both sides of the divide.

It said if the Pakatan Harapan government's concern over political association in schools was "legitimate", then the related government policies should apply to all members of Parliament regardless of affiliation.

Bersih pointed out that it was not uncommon for schools to invite local political representatives to grace their events.

"We do not question the right of Ministry of Education to impose policies or provide guidelines to protect schools from any negative influence but we do question the partisan implementation of policies.

"If there are concerns that some messages brought by politicians through their presence may not befit the educational setting, such concerns should be dealt with party-blind guidelines and standard operating procedures outlining violations for all visiting politicians," the Bersih steering committee said in a statement today.

Bersih was referring to Maszlee's statement made during his winding-up speech for Budget 2019 in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday in which he stated that opposition lawmakers who want to enter government schools must apply for permission from the ministry through the state education department.

Bersih added restricting such a requirement only to opposition-elected representatives would deny voters the services of their representatives who now were on the opposition bench after the election.

"We, therefore, call on Maszlee to immediately revoke the partisan instruction by his ministry and to replace it with an appropriate non-partisan guideline for all politicians who are invited to attend school events."

The issue arose when Jerai MP Sabri Azit of PAS claimed that he was barred from entering government schools despite being an elected representative.

This prompted Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Hanipa Maidin (below) to call for the claim to be looked into saying that the opposition should not be treated like how he was when Pakatan Harapan was the opposition.

"It is very unfortunate if the claim is true and this should not happen in the era of the Harapan government. It was a frequent occurrence for opposition MPs during the BN regime.

"It is not right and goes against the principle of equality before the law under Article 8 of the Federal Constitution," Hanipa had said on Sunday.

'Worst abuse under BN gov't'

Similarly, PKR central leadership council member Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad also opposed the policy, saying Harapan must take the "moral high ground" now that it assumed the position of federal control.

"Barring opposition figures from schools and other institutions of learning was one of the worst abuses under the previous BN government.

"Despite serving as Selangor state exco for education from 2014-2018, I was constantly barred from visiting schools there," he said in a separate statement today.

As such, he said legislators should be allowed into schools, colleges and universities when they were invited to do so.

"The minister ought to know better. He certainly should be more open-minded,' he said, adding there was no place for such policies in the new Malaysia.