Tag Archives: Education

Moving Forward with Science & English

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(This is hundred times better than some of cheap comics out there and it is my son’s favourite book at the moment. It is also starting to be mine. Image source: http://www.gempakstarz.com/)

The flip-flop direction in regards to the use of English in our national schools over the past few years is showing its ugly side.

Read these first:-

The Education Ministry is looking at ways to encourage more students to take up Science subjects due to the current low take-up rate. Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said currently, less than 20% of students were in the Science stream, a shortfall of the 60% target set by the ministry.

“We found that many students are interested in Science subjects but there are no follow-ups probably due to lack of support from parents as well as lack of appropriate facilities in schools,” he said after visiting students who are sitting for SPM examination at SMK Taman Kosas, Ampang Tuesday morning.

He said the ministry was considering giving incentives to both students and parents to encourage more kids to take up Science subjects such as free books and grants for students, and tax breaks for parents.

Earlier this year, Deputy Education Minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi said the ministry was viewing the matter seriously as there was a 37% drop in students taking up Science and Mathematics, and a 29% decline for pure science subjects. Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin had warned that the drop in interest in Science subjects may stunt efforts to improve technological innovations to make Malaysia a high income country.

(Source)

And

It has been revealed that two-thirds of 70,000 English teachers in the country failed to reach a proficient English level. Education Ministry deputy director-general Datuk Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof said it was one of the two major findings of a survey which required the teachers to sit for the Cambridge Placement Test.

Dr Khair added that the other major finding of the survey was that two in three students failed to meet the basics in English proficiency. “This was based on the comparison of the students’ results in SPM English and Cambridge 1119 standards,” he said, adding that the survey was conducted among 13,000 students.

(Source)

And

Students will suffer from the Education Ministry’s preoccupation with the Malay language at the expense of science and technology, according to the Parents Action Group for Education (PAGE). “Why are they pretending that the language of science and technology is Malay?” asked PAGE chief Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim. “They are definitely in a denial dream.”

She was commenting on the new education blueprint that the government unveiled this morning. “The blueprint is a total letdown since they played safe by not addressing key issues and recommendations,” she said.

(Source)

My son is very interested in Science and wants to be a Scientist one day (he has ideas that is out of this world but don’t say it is not possible in the near future). He has a good command of English (as far as I am concerned) so he watches more science related, complex documentaries than brainless cartoons (Marvel or DC cartoons however is excluded from this list) these days and even his comic books are all history or science related. He actively checks on the 3 large encyclopaedias (and me) whenever he has the slightest doubt of anything under the sun and he gets excited whenever he does any “experiments” in his room. He simply questions everything and is not happy when he cannot get a good answer.

Now, when I read the Education Minister’s comment that there is a major decline in Science stream students (not because the fucked up policy of not teaching Science in English?), I view this with great concern especially when my son has high interest in Science and is in the same education system. It is highly improbable that there is a lack of Science students due to “lack of support” from parents, not when most of us are aware the importance of subjects like Science and Mathematics. It is understandable if you say it is due to “lack of money for books / tuition” or “lack of means” to ensure their kids take up Science stream but I don’t think it is due to “lack of support” (unless Art and Religion are far more important than Science subjects for some parents). What is more probable is lack of facilities in schools – how many of them have a well-equipped lab with proper Science teachers and lab assistants? How many of them have the necessary funding to finance Science projects at schools?

The other item in the news – teachers in the country failing to reach a proficient English level was not a big surprise though. You can’t blame them entirely on this – they did not fail, the system did. The flip-flop on use of English in schools, over emphasis of the national language, lack of the necessary English trainers and sometimes the unnecessary hatred on mission run schools produces student who are weak in English and end up being teachers who are weak in English and the vicious cycle continues.

I was a Science stream student too but I did not do that well in all the science subjects for STPM but I did rather well in SPM. I don’t blame the teachers who taught me all those years though. I found that the teachers who taught Science when I did SPM were simply more brilliant (all of them have at least a degree or masters in actual science subjects), speak better English, more dedicated and more understanding (to weak, struggling students) than those teachers who taught me for STPM. Perhaps different school had different culture. I may not have done well in Science subjects for my STPM but I was lucky enough to go through schools (all secondary schools) that had proper well equipped Science lab which made learning Chemistry, Physics and Biology fun (still remember when you dissect the frog with the heart still pumping?). Those science labs were well equipped so we were able to conduct all experiments and more.

Move forward to the future, if nothing is done to curtail the lack of Science stream students and poor use of proper English in schools (yes, the education blueprint seems to address some part of this but it did not reverse the decision to teach Science and Mathematics in Bahasa instead of the more acceptable, universal English), the deterioration will only continue – couple that with lack of facilities due to lack of funds to schools, it is only going to get worse. It is not good news for the advancement of science and technology in this country. It is good to know that there are people both from the Government and the concerned citizens have not given up and continued to work towards improvement of the education system to meet real world challenges and demands. But such change is slow and faces many hurdles (quite a number political) before we can see a positive development.

So whilst we wait for the Government to reverse its unwise decision on not teaching Science and Mathematics in English and whilst we wait for our teachers to improve their command of English to a standard that we can really be proud of, it looks like it is up to you and me take up the challenge to ensure that our kids is inclined to use proper English and incline towards the subject of Science and Mathematics – ok, never mind Science and Mathematics but at least proper English. I am concerned about the state of education in the country and me and my wife have given a lot of thought on what we can do as concerned parents. What we can do to ensure that our kid do not slack on the subjects of English, Science and Mathematics and at the same time, master the national language and all other subjects (including Tamil).

No doubt, we cannot change everything overnight but let me tell you on what I have done for my son in the last few years.

My son’s first spoken language was English (we have been talking in English to him since he was born) so it was slightly easier to start him off on reading and learning things in English. So we already had a good foundation to start with. When he was small, it was not easy to get him to read (we read to him instead) – so we started with something highly visual and colourful – TV kiddies programs and we were quite careful on what we pick for him to watch. Anything that teaches him on reading, words and identification skills was on top of our list. My son got his share of children toys but in between we also try to add something that will provide mental exercise for him. And that continued even after he had started studying in kindergarten. But at the end of the day, all this was to build up good foundation. The real work starts for us when he started his schooling in national primary school.

For the first year he struggled with Bahasa but it did not stop him from keeping up with the school work (although we had to do some serious translations and plenty of checking at home). Kiddies shows was drastically reduced (although he gets to see whatever he wants to see on the weekends) and more educational shows (Discovery, National Geography, History channels) take more time when we switch on the TV. It is back to the highly visual and colourful method of getting him interested on at least some of the current development in science and technology. TV is just one of the tools we deploy for knowledge and understanding. At the end of the day, it is back to basic, so my son have to do some kind of school work (alternating between Mathematics, English, Bahasa, writing and colouring exercises) at least for one hour before dinner everyday (if he has more time, then we extend his revision time as well). After his dinner, he has his adventures comics (such as this  – he has collected a few over the last few months and intends to collect the whole set) which provides humour and general knowledge.

And we have been  learning too – the last thing we need is for the blind to lead the blind. We had to be very sure that whatever answer we give is the correct answer. We had to make sure that we can back up our answer with the right evidence (thanks for the internet for that). We had to be sure that we can explain the unproven theories and provide the various options. And when it comes to English, we also try to drop that “lah” from our conversation and with the right grammar and we keep a close eye on our son too. No doubt, it is tough to keep him interested and maintaining him in the right path when it comes to English and Science (after all he is still a kid and undue stress is the last thing he needs) and it would be more helpful if the education policies are changing in the right path too. Until then, it is up to the individual parents and students to make the big difference on how they are going to handle the shortcomings in the education system. We have to take the first steps and maintain at it.

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Millions for Schools

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Seriously, do we have that much of money to toss around or is Christmas simply early this year?

(Think of it as an investment for the future – schools that does  not have enough money to run is going to greatly impact its students and their performance in education. Image source: http://www.connectmidmissouri.com)

If there is one thing I take with great concern, it has to be on the direction of the education system in this country. And in the last few weeks, there has been major development in regards to this – one was the unrevealing of the national blueprint for 2013 – 2025 and the other was this:-

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has announced an allocation of RM30mil for the development of Chinese national-type secondary schools (SMJK) in the country. During his address at the MCA annual general assembly here Sunday, Najib said he had discussed the matter with Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also the Education Minister, and they had agreed to grant RM30mil for the schools.

Earlier in his presidential address, MCA chief Datuk Seri Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek had appealed to the Prime Minister for assistance for these schools, saying there was currently no allocation for them. “There are 78 conforming schools with more than 125,000 students. They should be given an allocation of RM50mil next year,” he said.

(Source)

It is not the first or last time we have heard of this kind of “sincerity” from the Government especially when the general election is coming up soon:-

For how long more we can keep giving away the money when source of fund is truly limited?

In the first place, we have yet to see any concrete plans from anyone to merge the various “types” of school in this country into one common type where it will be easier to manage them under the same policy and consolidated funding. What we have seen so far is perpetuation of this segregation and any attempts to introduce any form of integration of schools) are often met with passionate, angry response from certain community leaders and compounded with undue political pressure. Sometimes illogical reasons like quick diminish of the mother language & culture with the younger generations feeds the fear of change, sometimes the grave concern of the difference of quality between the various types of school makes the segregation sounds valid (argument that Chinese schools teachers are more responsible and more concerned about the students’ development, an argument to keep the Chinese schools still relevant, on the other hand is utter rubbish).

Why we have not been able to integrate the schools after 55 years of independence? Is it a question of emotion or actual concern? Tony Pua in 2007 wrote this:-

The recently launched National Education Blueprint 2006 by Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein focuses purely on “strengthening the national schools”, with vernacular schools representing just a statistic in Malaysia’s education landscape. Vernacular schools are often neglected or treated with suspicion due to their ethnically Chinese or Tamil nature. There are widespread fears that the strengthening or even the presence of vernacular schools in Malaysia is antithetical to achieving national unity.

Chinese and Tamil educationists on the other hand, fear the strengthening of national schools will erode the future character and viability of vernacular schools. For many of them, every facet of the existing vernacular education must be protected at all cost. Otherwise, they fear detractors will pounce on any signs of weakness to destroy vernacular education in this country.

As a result, parties on both sides of the equation treat the issue of national versus vernacular schools as a zero sum game — one party’s gain is the other’s loss. However, such views are certainly flawed and works against the interest of a multi-racial and multi-cultural country like Malaysia. They are bred through mistrust and hardened by years of negative experiences.

Vernacular school educationists are also, understandably, unconvinced by the “national unity” argument because the government has taken steps to build and expand MRSM secondary schools which are almost exclusive domains of ethnic Malays.

Rita Sim in August 2012 also talked about the strength and weaknesses of Chinese schools in the country. And one of her argument for the existence of Chinese School is this:-

From the economic perspective, the rise of China puts a global economic superpower in our immediate neighbourhood and we would be foolish not to harness Chinese schools to enhance cultural and linguistic capital for our national professional, commercial and diplomatic advantage. Every Malaysian has the opportunity to benefit because our Chinese schools are not discriminatory.

Are you saying that if Afghanistan becomes the next global economic superpower (let’s run with our wild imagination, shall we?), we should drop everything and start Pastho/Dari schools? We have yet to put our foot down on ensuring good command of English (p.s. the language of many economic superpowers in the world – Japanese, French & Spanish is another) in our national education biosphere and here we are only focussing on the Chinese language. And if we apply the same argument for Tamil schools, then why we are not learning Hindi? So why not just address the reasons to maintain the vernacular schools – come up with the best win-win solution for students, teachers and students whilst still maintaining the high standard of education all around with good emphasis on the issue of language (let’s have Chinese & Tamil classes on the daily basis & on extra hours if we still insist on equipping ourselves with language of the economic superpowers) and force all to be converted into national school where it can be fully funded by the Government?

It is a fact that not all Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools are fully funded schools; they need to apply to the Government for the additional funding and this is where the problem usually starts. The schools have to rely on the Government and by some extension, politicians to get the necessary funding for schools and this has not been easy for some schools especially Tamil schools. And those who have decided that they will remain as vernacular schools despite these improvements and resists all attempts for national integration should be left standing on their own. And in the end, we will only have 2 types of school in this country – fully funded public and self funded private schools.

Of course, announcing millions of ringgit for the vernacular schools is one thing (after all anyone can announce anything under the sun), the vernacular schools seeing the actual dough (or sometimes land) for its expansion & non-Government funded operations is another thing all together. It takes too long for these schools to get the money but the problems facing them simply compounds on daily basis especially for the students. Sometimes the actual disbursement of the funds – the final amount and the time it is finally disbursed is made slightly complicated with the presence of “middleman”. There is a high chance of the money is passed from the Government to middleman to be managed and only trickles are passed on to these schools at the end of the day.

Giving away money to school is just a short term fix to a long term problem – yes, it provides an immediate relief to the problems that the school are facing but it does not really provide the long term solution to long term problems. It does not really address the issue of sustainability of money for schools. The Government does not have deep pockets to keep giving away money to schools on yearly basis and there are other areas of the administration that the Government need to look into as well (healthcare, defence, crime-fighting, etc but not the plans like BRIM which simply gives out money but does not really address the issue of low income in the long run). The state of the country’s economy and management of the money that we have also dictates how much these schools is going to get its share of the pie in the future and one cannot guarantee a high performance economy all the time.

There is only so much that the schools can do to self-manage funding for schools – the yearly school fees, donations from parents & other individuals (many prefer to donate to temples than to schools), fund raising activities and perhaps (to those who have the right infrastructure) rentals collected from booking of school halls for other functions & sports activities. Some even advise automation & going green as part of the cost cutting measures. Those schools with the right connection can look into additional funding from State Government and perhaps sponsorship from some private organisations on land, equipment and money but it does not apply to all schools especially those tucked away in deep rubber estates.

The more viable option would be to convert themselves from partially funded schools to fully funded schools and that means to change from vernacular type school to national type school where the main language of the day is Bahasa Malaysia and English with high importance to Mandarin & Tamil. This will also resolve another factor that contributes to dwindling number of students in some of the vernacular schools (and thus directly the funding for schools). When all are national schools adhering to the same standards and policies, it will be easier to distribute the students as well (some schools are now overcrowded, others barely have regular students).

One must remember that at the end, the one who truly suffer due to inconsistent funding and difference in policies are the students. Not the Minister, the Ministry, the politicians who is looking for an opportunity or community educationalists who insist on priority of language & culture without looking for a long term solution especially when it comes to funding to schools.

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MIC’s Take On One School System

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Oh dear, after all these years, they still clueless on why they took a hit in 2008?

(In the picture – MIC on the wrong side of the Tamil schools. No doubt Tamil schools have been the key factor when it comes to MIC and its claim that it is fighting for the community and yes, that they have helped out the schools in the past with financial assistances and others allocations but are they playing the crucial role in the next evolution of the education system in the country by looking at quality instead of quantity? Image source)

From theSun:-

Question: Why are Tamil schools so important to MIC? You yourself come from a national school and the majority of Indians are in national schools.

Answer: Tamil schools are part and parcel of Indian culture – they go to Tamil schools not only to learn Tamil, but also to learn culture and religion. If Tamil schools go away, then tradition and culture will also go.

Question: Why are young professionals shying away from MIC?

Answer: They don’t see MIC as a fun party – the president has plans to rejuvenate the party with younger representation – we have also Putra MIC for the youths. The young must be patient – MIC has only four parliamentary seats and seven state seats.

Question: Is the concept of catering to only one race not attractive?

Answer: Yes and no. But only in MIC one can write, speak and talk in Tamil – but even for non-Tamil speakers, they are not left out as some of the meetings are conducted in English and Bahasa.

Question: How has MIC been preparing for the next general election (GE), especially after the bitter defeat in 2008?

Answer: MIC has stressed that we must win back what we lost and retain those we won. We are doing everything that we can to get the numbers we had in 2004, we know it is difficult, it may not be possible. Compared with his predecessor (Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu), MIC president Datuk Seri G. Palanivel is not much in the news. You cannot compare the two leaders. It is not easy to take up the leadership at this time especially after the bad showing in the 2008 election. His style of working is different. We are reported in the Tamil papers. Yes, it is not enough, and we have also put MIC TV available on YouTube and are also communicating with urban Tamils.

I could have just ignored the interview but there was one thing he said that made me stop in my thoughts and wonder.

I am referring to Kamalanathan’s “reason” on why we still need Tamil schools in this country. Kamalanathan is saying that without Tamil schools in this country, the tradition and culture will also go. No doubt Kamalanathan is looking from his point of view as one of the MIC’s leaders but there must be reality check somewhere there. It is important  to understand the role of the school these days. Is it to encourage and propagate tradition and culture? Or is it another means to get good education with a different language as the main base (due to students’ background and mastery of language)?

I think we need to get the priorities right – education & discipline should be confined to schools and tradition & culture (and religion) confined to temples and cultural centers (like the Temple of Fine Arts). The moment you start to mix the both, you going to get in trouble and leave room for abuse and misdirection – certainly not with young innocent minds. It is downright unfair too – what about other races who does not share the same tradition and culture, are we going to built separate schools for them? Surely they want to preserve their traditions and culture as well.

And why we are continuing to break-up the schools into various sectors and race when it is crucial to have one school, one language for all? If the concern is losing the hold of the tradition & culture, then we should relook into how we can fuse tradition and culture in our temples (we seems have too many of them) or cultural centres (and perhaps with more tradition & cultural segments on public media like TV and newspapers). There are alternatives on how we can continue to maintain the tradition and culture without going through the schools. But please, let’s keep the race, tradition, culture and religion crap out of schools.

The reason for it is rather simple – it defeats the progress to greater unity as reasoned below:-

Historically, the British built separate vernacular schools to maintain racial divide and prejudice to lord over us. It is indeed expedient and shrewd and one of the things that should have been kicked out right after Malaysia gained independence from the British if our leaders truly want to see a united Malaysia turn up without jeopardising our national language, our official religion, our monarchy and our Rukun Negara.

Vernacular schools impede national unity at the primordial stage; there is no room for vernacular school in a multi-racial society.

(Source)

And if the concern is losing the hold of the Tamil language (still remember the controversy on the extra language SPM papers?), this is because not enough attempts made to provide alternative language classes at national schools – all we need is the classes & qualified teachers in national schools (MIC can play a strong role here) and not a whole school with different emphasis, language, structure and funding. At this juncture, I must recap what OutSyed the Box said on the need to have common language (hence different schools in the same country) – it makes more sense than what Kamalanathan is trying to say:-

The time has also come where we must seriously consider merging the school system into just one school system i.e. based on Bahasa Malaysia and English only. We need to abolish the Chinese and Tamil language school system. The Chinese and Tamil language heroes say that if Chinese and Tamil schools are abolished, their language and culture will also disappear. Wrong.

There are 1.5 billion Chinese in China who will make sure that the Chinese language, culture and the Chinese people will never disappear from the face of the earth. The same argument applies for the 1.0 billion Indians in India. This however is Malaysia. It is not and cannot be China or India.

When Chinese, Indians and anyone else migrate to Australia they learn to speak English in a jiffy. No one asks for Tamil or Mandarin to be made national languages in Australia. No one sings the Waltzing Matilda in Tamil or Mandarin in Australia.

The same logic applies to Malaysia. It is high time non Malays in Malaysia learn to speak Malay like a native Malay. Getting straight As for Bahasa Malaysia in the SPM does not mean anything if you still say ‘saya api kereta naik mari’ or ‘saya naik keleta api mali sini.”

It is not cute anymore. Actually it is quite embarrassing. Please, let’s speak the language the way it should be spoken.

Now, coming back to the need for Tamil school – it is not an issue of losing tradition and culture if the Tamil schools are closed down that we need to fear of (yes, there will be some impact but not to the point where the future generations would be clueless on tradition and culture). Just look at the Indians in US and UK who are doing well in maintaining their tradition and culture despite going to a non-Indian language based schools.

There is a greater concern when a politician from a race based political party insists on preserving the Tamil schools – we fear that attempts to breakdown this segregation and forcing everyone to go to the same school and speak the language will be derailed or sabotaged by race based policies and race based political party who hold them as the trump cards to be still relevant. And this is what is happening in our education system – it has been screwed up to a point we are still having different schools in the country.

Surely there will be specific issues that will face certain communities more than others from time to time but we need to consider which one is more critical. If it is on education and national unity, let’s fight for the good of the country and not just for each others communities. Do that and you will earn our confidence and our votes in the next general elections.

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Snippets – 07 June 2012

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(The Telegraph reports this as one of the rarest astronomical events occurs on Tuesday and Wednesday when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, a transit that won’t occur again until 2117. But in Malaysia, we seems to have other things to be interested with. Image source: http://haryanaabtak.com)

Million Youths Drag Race Accident

You probably have heard about this incident that happen last month during Najib’s Million Youths Gathering. 17 people were seriously injured and accusations have been flying around on who suppose to take the blame for the incident. But if you have read in between the lines, there seems to be a larger “accident” at work:-

He said he would suggest to the cabinet that a proper drag racing track as long as 800m, complete with spectator seats, be built. “I will speak to the cabinet as soon as possible. The suggestion had been brought up previously, but it was not approved. “I feel that it is timely for us to build a track with proper facilities and safety features so that fans of motorsports can enjoy the race and also to avoid such accidents in the future,” he said.

(Source)

And it was rightfully pointed out by a reader over at Funtasicko Design:-

Ini lah Malaysia. Setakat nak buat track untuk perlumbaan drag pun nak kena kelulusan kabinet. Dulu elok-elok dah ada trek Batu Tiga, sapa suruh robohkan? Sepatutunya, setakat bendalah ‘simple’ macam trek perlumbaan hanya perlu kerjasama kerajaan tempatan (dalam hal tanah dan alam sekitar) dan ‘sanction’ dari AAM untuk memastikan trek memenuhi piawai antarabangsa. Kenapa perlu sampai ke kabinet? Apa yang jemaah menteri tahu pasal sukan permotoran? Tukar tayar kereta pun tak reti agaknya,sibuk nak cakap pasal motorsport.

(Loosely translated) This is Malaysia. They need Cabinet approval for even trivial things like doing up a track for drag racing. We used to have the excellent Batu Tiga racing track – who asked it to be demolished? Actually simple things like this can be resolved with the help of local authorities (on issues of land and environment) and AAM’s sanction to ensure that the track meets international standards. Why you need to bring it all the way to Cabinet? What do the ministers know about motor racing? It is doubtful that they even know how to change tires on their car and here we have the same people taking about motorsport.

What is more distressing – a car flying off from a rudimentary unsanctioned track and seriously injuring 17 people or a Federal level minister who do not seems to know what he is talking about? Do we really have the right people with the right knowledge and skills for the job – more so at critical decision making level?

And we are seeing it again in action with the freeze of education loan for the Unisel students.

Reporters grilled Muhyiddin, who is also education minister, on the matter only to have the minister say ad nauseum that the freeze is a test for PKR to prove it can implement its free education proposal. Backing Muhyiddin was Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Minister and Selangor Umno deputy chief Noh Omar, who at the same event said students will not suffer as a result of the move as PTPTN will resume giving out loans once PKR admits it was wrong.

(Source)

I do not want to indulge much on the politicians’  level of intelligence but on the other hand, to have the Deputy Prime Minister who is also the Education Minister to say that the freeze is due to PKR’s stand is simply dumb. Just because they want to make a point, they gamble with students’ future – what’s next? Setting aside all those who had voted the Opposition from all benefits until these people vote for BN again (it is not like that they have not done this on smaller scale)?

The opposition have been calling for free education and the abolishment of PTPTN for some time now – one may need to study further on the merits of abolishment. It may be a good thing (young graduate with low starting pay not burdened with high repayment of education loan) or a bad one (poor students not having enough money to study) but even if they come in power and decides to abolish, it is evident that these cannot be done overnight. They can say a lot of thing now but if they become the Government, there is plenty of things to do before they can even talk about implementing it – alternative funding must be ready and other infrastructure is in place before this is done and BN knows this too.

You can have your own little dirty politics within and outside your political party especially with the elections around the corner but it should not affect your duties and responsibilities especially when it comes to education and students. The timing is not right and it does not achieve anything positive and puts unnecessary distress and pressure on the students. You have to be fair – you want to freeze, you freeze all or you counter the Opposition with the hard cold facts.

Anyway they have now decided to reversed this decision after the Selangor State Government had decided to liquidate assets to assist students who are unable to access the study loans – however the reason for the reversal seemed to be dumber than the earlier reason to freeze

(Still remember Nurin or Sharline? They were not the only children who went missing in this country. Who is to be blamed? Image source: http://linkenlim.blogspot.com)

Ah, Some Parents!

When will they ever learn? It is apparent that there are still some parents out there who take things for granted when it comes to children safety. Come on, just imagine – if adults are being abducted in day broad-light, what more of young defenceless children?

A housewife nearly lost a child in a carjacking incident in Bandar Baru Kangkar Pulai here on Monday.

Recounting the 11.30am incident, Khazlim Saat, 35, said she had left her three children, Nor Sabrina Damiah Mohd Hisham, six, Nor Sofea Hadirah, four, and Mohd Ryan Hazim, still a toddler, in her Perodua Myvi car with the engine still running in front of a grocery shop as she intended to spend just a few minutes to buy some household goods.

“As I was going into the shop, Damiah came to me and even before she could open her mouth I heard Hadirah screaming. “I rushed out of the shop and saw Hadirah was outside the car and a man getting into it and driving away with a door still ajar,” she said, adding that panicked, she asked passers-by to call the police.

(Source)

Leaving kids in the car whilst running off on a quick errand is nothing new for most parents. It is the same case for us and our son but until he had learned to lock and unlock the car from the inside, we never leave him alone in the car with the engine still running. And even now after he had mastered the locking & unlocking of the car door, we still do not leave him alone in the car (my wife will always sits with him – we do not want him to unlock the door to some strangers) except on a rare occasions – when we really have no other choice, we simply brings him along on the errand. On other occasions, we simply leave him at home (again, not alone) or at our neighbor’s house – it is thousand times safer than having him alone in the car.

The same goes when he wants to go to the playground – even he is playing with his group of friends and do not want us to be standing nearby, we always ensure that we are within a safe distance from him. And even so, we would give him a list of strict instructions and repeat them a couple of times before we even consider leaving him alone at the playground.

So imagine my horrors when some parents had left not one or two kids in the car with engine still running but three including a toddler. No doubt there will be times when some of us may not have a choice but to leave the kids in the car with engine still running but do we think twice of the risks before we do that? And this not necessarily is limited to kids and car – it can also mean sending kids alone sundry shop or letting kids playing by the roadside unattended. Where do we place our priority – our children’s safety or a mere inconvenience of doing things the harder way?

Khazlim Saat should have counted her lucky stars that the car-jacker did not drive off with her 3 kids and they did not end up couple of days stuffed in a gym bag.

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“K”, “P”, “R” and Schools

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Let’s talk something serious this week…

(All you need is mutual respect on each others beliefs, culture and religion and we can get along just fine no matter what happens. Unfortunately we sometimes forget this and make a fool of ourselves by teaching our kids to be the same low-life idiot as we are. Image source: http://www.ausgamers.com)

Damn, I have talked about schools being safe for our kids and it seems that the need for it is fast becoming crucial from another type of danger.

Read this first:-

Racism has reared its ugly head in schools again and sources claim that there is an attempt to cover up the latest incident. Last week, a teacher at the secondary school had allegedly scolded a group of Indian Form Five students, calling them “Hindu Pariah.”

She also allegedly ticked off two other Indian Muslim boys for befriending the Indian students. Sources claimed that education authorities and headmistress Farah Shikh Abd Rahman attempted to cover up the matter and defended the teacher when confronted by parents of the affected students.

Sources claimed that the officials, comprising Mohd Raffie Bachik, Huzaid Ibrahim and Daud Shaari, warned the students and witnesses to “keep their mouth shut” over the incident. The students were warned of dire consequences if they were to disseminate any information on the issue to outsiders, including their parents.

Farah, who became the school’s headmistress some four years ago, was also accused of uttering derogatory remarks against Indian teachers and parents previously.

(Source)

It is very disturbing when we read about racial segregation and abuse at school level. It is even more disturbing that no serious attempts have been made to punish those who have uttered these racial laced statements and curtail this dangerous trend at the bud. Whatever happened to Najib’s 1Malaysia crap?

Anyway, the reason why I am writing this is because in addition to incidents of fellow Malaysians calling and being called “K” or “P” (and it seems that calling Indians “K” or “P” is not limited to non-Indians as well), there seems to be another disturbing trend in school these days. A couple days ago, my son told me that a classmate told him that he could not be my son’s friend because my son is not a Muslim and this is what his parents had told him to do (at this point, I went like WTF and had hoped that my son had seriously misunderstood his classmate).

If we are already alarmed by the acts of stupidity of some teachers (no matter what is their sorry excuse) towards their young students who are from different race, culture and religion, just imagine the shock we get when we learn that some dumb and shit-thinking some parents are actively teaching their innocent young ones on racial and religion segregation. Just imagine what will happen when these children grows one day and faces others who are not in the same colour of their skin or religion. Wonder who would be the bigger losers then?

Calling each other names among schoolmates is nothing new – I still recall calling some of my friend funny names (like my friend, we teased him by calling Bunsen Mouth because he had large lips or another, Bulu Man because he had thick hairs on his body and then we had the usual “Pendeks”, “Panjangs” and “Gemuks”) and I have been called names by others but it does not last for long and is usually done for fun. But I don’t recall calling anyone any names that bordered on racial or religion slurs. And certainly I don’t recall any one instance we do not want to friend anyone because they are not in the same stream of religion that we were in. Perhaps we were too innocent or perhaps our parents had done things right in instilling a sense of respect and understanding of others’ culture and religion. But things are seems to be different now.

Despite our trust on national school (and the hope that we will finally implement the one school concept), on our belief that national unity starts at school level and our patience on the revamped education system, such incidents even though may be isolated, does raise some serious alarms. Is it a tip of the iceberg or is it something we can simply ignore and move on? What are we doing to instil a sense of respect and unity among our students? Where are the neutrality and the better judgement of our teachers (on how and when to punish the students) and the fun of going to school like what we experienced in 1980s and before?

Coming back to my son, I took a deep breath and told my son to simply ignore them (since there is nothing much we can do), focus and do what he need to do in school – soak up whatever positive knowledge he can get, pass the exams with flying colours and enjoy his schooling days whilst it lasts and if he is hard-working, polite, respectable and sincere to all regardless of colour of the skin, culture or religion, he will find great friends in school. He seemed to be wiser than me – he told me that it is what he has done and spends more time with his closer circle of friends at school (who I know are very kind and simply brilliant in their studies). And he has a bigger circle of friends (from all races and religion) at the neighbourhood (one reason he goes to the playground on a daily basis) and already have major “plans” for his future studies.

Finally, I don’t know about you but I feel that calling others “K” or “P” will only make it offensive if one chooses to respond to it the wrong way. The “K” and “P” words are not new words and it has been used historically to connote a certain group of people or caste. Sure, no one complained about it back then but as society evolves and the barrier between group of people – race, religion, caste, etc – breaks down, the use of “K” or “P” is no longer appropriate. There is no justification to continue to utter those words in public especially after it has been made clear that such words are deemed derogatory. The same happened to the “N” word. How do you explain to young children that these are not nice words to be uttered to others and how you get the other young children to ignore them? All the sudden, all that hoo-haa on the Interlok seems to make some sense now (my apology).

We can continue to talk about racism in this country and on the implications of “K” and “P” (or other derogatory) words and the extent of religion & racial adherence creeping into our daily activities & even national policies and hope that things will not go from bad to worse. And no doubt race and religion is sensitive issues in this country but it is a high time we wake up to reality – let’s keep racism and religion segregation out from our schools – it does not matter what we adults think and do on these issues but the young innocent mind is too precious to be wasted on such things. Let’s not act dumb.

Have a nice weekend…

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