Give recognition for goodness sake!

By


The Minister of Education has been urged to give recognition to a church-based uniformed group for the sake of the kids


By Stephen Ng


For nearly one year, I have been trying to seek for official recognition for a church-based uniformed group that offers great personal development programmes for children and young people (ages 6-17).

It has been operating in Malaysia for over 35 years, and in my children’s outpost, they have just celebrated their 30th anniversary on September 29, 2018.

My two children have enjoyed the numerous adventure camps and “slumber parties” organised by very dedicated commanders who were once young kids who went through the programme.

Most of the commanders are either young working adults or university students. After school, they have this opportunity to be groomed as leaders.

My children have been participating in the activities since they were five years old. The activities are held on Sunday afternoons, which fit very well into the schedule of both the commanders and parents.

Under the Ministry of Education’s “1Sukan, 1Murid”, I therefore find it superfluous for these children who are already attending the activities on Sunday afternoons, still having to attend another uniformed group in school.

To my surprise, when the application for recognition was first sent to the ministry by the secretariat, the Co-curriculum unit refused to recognise the group, which means that our children will have to attend another uniformed group in school. What logic is this?

Why are we putting the extra burden on children whose parents are already sending them to the church-based uniformed group. My children, for example, had started as early as five years old because we found the activities as beneficial.

The verbal explanation given is that the activities must be held on the school compound before it can be recognised by the ministry.

Excuses are also given that the ministry is now trying to streamline the number of uniformed groups. This will soon limit the choices for children to pick the uniformed group that they want to participate in. Is this how the Minister of Education, Maszlee Malik expect to leave his legacy?

If it is for the children’s personal development, as a parent, I would prefer my kids to join this group than any uniformed groups in schools, which can be cancelled impromptu.

I have just recorded a parent who told me that in her son's school, there is a boys scouts that his whole class is told to participate. What shocks me the most is that the children do not even have their scouts uniforms.
The same people in charge of co-curriculum at the ministry should know that there are uniformed groups including Taekwando that are held outside of the school compound, which my children also participate in.

So, what is so sacred about having the activities on school compound before the group can be recognised by the ministry?

If Maszlee is committed to reforms, he must listen to parents and not make the “1Sukan, 1Murid” a burden to the children.

Given no further avenue to appeal, I will continue to highlight this and other issues from time to time in the media.

https://www.thestar.com.my/opinion/letters/2018/10/02/spanner-in-plan-to-get-recognition-for-group/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seeking Justice for Teachers

By
Image
Seeking Justice for Teachers By Stephen Ng In Kuala Selangor, a teacher from a Tamil primary school complained that she had been threatened and embarrassed by her school principal in front of other teachers. In her police report, the 28-year-old lady mentioned that she had accidentally injured herself while the quarrel was going on. In the incident which happened on Oct 3, she wrote in her report that the principal had allegedly used the words, ‘to take revenge’ on her. Under such circumstances, I would be surprised if the principal is allowed to continue helming the school. He does not set a good example for the children and other teachers. Meanwhile, in Sibu, Sarawak, another video clip showing a headmaster yelling at a pregnant teacher has also gone viral after it was posted on Facebook on Sept 27. This has brought to the attention of the civil society the stress that teachers have to bear under unreasonable superiors. While mooting the idea of allowing tea
Read more

Patrick Teoh hits the nail on the head

By
Image
By Stephen Ng I cannot help it but pick up a comment from a good friend of mine, Patrick Teoh, when I saw it being viralled around. Like me, Teoh has been very quiet for some time, but for him to make an occasional remark about Malaysian Education Minister, Maszlee Malik, there is more to this than meets the eye. Teoh's words were packed with sarcasm:  "Oh sorry I must have missed it. But which 2nd language did we master already?"  Knowing Teoh as a man who would not hold back his punches, I can fully understand his frustrations. I, too, was equally puzzled with Maszlee's latest statement about wanting Malaysians to master a third language. My personal opinion is that Maszlee was merely trying to parrot former Minister of Trade and Industries, Rafidah Aziz who merely said during her school days, they could even learn French but today, French is no longer in our vocabulary. Rafidah was in fact hitting out at
Read more

Can we depend on the schools to solve the bag load issue?

By
Image
By Stephen Ng I am sure most of us are not born yesterday to be thinking that school heads can be depended upon to solve the heavy bag issue. One after another minister of education has come and gone, but the school bags are still heavy that you need a donkey to help carry it into the classroom. But, in Malaysia, donkeys are seldom found except in the zoo. With the exception of a few good principals, most school heads merely pay lip service to the bag load issue. Principals, especially in the Chinese primary schools, happily add to the burden by making it mandatory for school children to buy additional workbooks, and a whole lot of other resource/ reference books, that they claim to be very useful for the children. In 2017, Puay Chai 2 Level 1 (Standards 1-3) were told to buy workbooks. When complaint reached the ministry, and the officers were supposed to come and investigate, for some reasons the school asked the children to remove the covers of the workbooks so that they
Read more