RE-BUILDING MALAYSIAN EDUCATION

By Stephen Ng  Comment: Much has been said about the Unified Examination Certificate or the UEC. One of the promises in the Pakatan Harapan and even Barisan Nasional manifesto was to recognise the certificate. Here, we have a member of parliament, Edmund Santhara (Segamat) who raised the issue again in the parliament recently. Here is an Indian MP from PKR who spoke on behalf of the Chinese community, an excellent show of the Malaysia Baru spirit. However, it is just too disappointing to note that, while the issue was brought up, the other Chinese MPs in the august house kept very silent about the issue. Not even a single person show the support. Have our MPs from the various component parties within Pakatan Harapan forgotten their commitment to recognise the UEC?  The deputy of education, Teo Nie Ching herself had earlier announced that the UEC would be recognised by November this year. This announcement, however, was reversed by Maszlee Malik, who said th

By Stephen Ng Comment: I find it amusing that Sabah Deputy Education and Innovation Minister, Jennifer Lasimbang should lament over the decision to allow stateless children to attend public schools. She is, at best, short sighted and selfish. Instead of providing a solution, she talks about the problems faced in Sabah and Sarawak, if stateless children are allowed to enrol in public schools. Let me remind you, Jennifer that under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, the right to education is one of the key principles underpinning the Education 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goal 4.  This is adopted by the international community. Regardless of their statelessness, every child has a right to education. While their citizenship is being dealt with by the cabinet, they should at least be given not just an education, but quality education. With what you have just said, you are not just fit to hold the education portfolio, if you do not und

Photo credit: Malaysiakini  By Stephen Ng Education is preparing the younger generation of Malaysians for tomorrow. Therefore, it deserves more attention and focus. Any mistakes made can be very costly. For example, a few generations of Malaysians have lost out in terms of the ability to read, write and speak English, no thanks to the policy based on mindsets typical of hypocrites in the likes of Rais Yatim. When issues cropped up at school level and they are not nipped at the bud, parents' confidence in the education system is eroded as a result. The PIBG constitution, for example, needs to be further tightened to curb abuses and misappropriation of funds. I have highlighted a number of issues relating to the teaching profession. The Ministry of Education is also fully aware of the issues that cropped up. For example, case of a pregnant teacher being shouted at by the school principal, what actions has the ministry taken against the principal? Then, there is th

Photo credit: Malaysiakini  By Stephen Ng Another parent has written at great length about  heavy bags . I am sure that Education Minister, Maszlee Malik is fully aware about the issue of heavy bags especially in primary schools. The writer, Henry Soon has pointed out that a major contributor to the heavy bags are "the many commercial workbooks for practically every subject in the school syllabus, especially in primary schools, and more so for Chinese primary schools." This issue of heavy bags has been highlighted time and again. In July last year, the Star Education desk dealt with the issue of  heavy bags  in its main story. Former deputy minister of education, Chong Sin Woon and the minister, Mahadzir Khalid then issued a warning to schools not to force the children to buy more than one additional workbook for each subject for Standards 4-6.  Children in Standards 1-3 are not allowed to buy any additional workbooks. This directive was first issued in

By Stephen Ng Every year, millions of Ringgit goes to the company that maintains VLE Frog, a portal that is meant to be used by school children. However, since it was launched a few years ago, my children hardly log on. The is just no need to log on to VLE Frog. The idea of teachers uploading the list of homework, for example, does not make much sense as it adds on to the administrative burden of teachers. The traditional way of teachers writing on the board and students copying the daily list of homework is more practical, besides helping the children to learn to use the correct spellings. In the case of my children, I have provided a zipped folder for them, where they can put all their daily homework in. All that they need to do when the get home is to pull out the homework pouch, and everything is in there. The only features that I find useful in VLE Frog are the digital version of the textbooks and some storybooks. However, it does not provide a Read Aloud applic

Myth of Language leading to so-called National Unity By Stephen Ng In a recent forum, “' Malaysia: A New Dawn', former Minister of International Trade and Industries, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz commented about Education Minister, Dr Maszlee Malik’s slogan ‘Memartabatkan Bahasa Malaysia’. I would like to add to her rhetoric. To me, promoting Bahasa Malaysia to strengthen national unity is nothing but a myth. This slogan, based on Shih Huang Ti’s efforts to unite the many kingdoms into one country using Mandarin as the official language has been sung by Umno propagandists time and again for many decades. This narrow mindedness of people in the likes of Tan Sri Rais Yatim has sidelined English and other vernacular languages. This has destroyed the country’s competitiveness in the international arena. How can Malaysia be an Asian tiger if its people can hardly speak standard English and communicate with the rest of the world?  With Bahasa Malaysia, we can on

By Stephen Ng How much is it to bring a smile to these children at SK Mendas in Sarawak? Because of the generosity of a number of people who contributed RM100 each, these children now have a pair of shoes that they can call their own. The money was initially donated to help the case of a boy with two failed kidneys, Benesley. However, the donations was above what was needed. The boy’s mother agreed to give the money away to bless these children. This is how it all started. It was Minister of Education, Maszlee Malik’s special officer,  Shaza Scherazade Alauddin Onn who first told me about these children who were only wearing slippers to school. She had no contact with the children, but after watching the video clip  by a teacher Cikgu Emmet, Maszlee told her that these children were wearing slippers in school. With permission from the donors, we decided to channel the money to buy a pair of shoes for each child. With the help of my contact in Sarawak, Pastor Te

By Stephen Ng Credit to whom credit is due.  It has come to my understanding that Education Minister, Maszlee Malik has initiated the setting up of Speakers' Corner in all public schools.  This deserves our applause as the nation is in dire need of good public speakers and debaters who can make an impact on society.  I was a member of the Literary Association of Methodist Boys' School (LAMBS), where we had public debates. I was one of the participants in an inter-school competition. Those were the days when we had opportunities to be involved in public speaking.  When I went to university, part of the university programme was to do a project in the laboratory on our own, after which we had to give a presentation to our fellow students and the lecturers. I used to impress my university lecturers as a good presenter. Although the subject was as boring as anyone could imagine of Chemistry, I always made it an attempt to entertain the audience.  Thi

You Are Driving Me Nuts By Stephen Ng I appeal once again to Education Minister, Maszlee Malik to focus on the more important issues instead of looking at ideas like setting up swimming as a co-curriculum activity in schools. Pardon me, but I think you are really driving me nuts. You should just read genuine comments that readers of Malaysiakini have taken the trouble to post on the article. While I agree that swimming is an important skill to learn, the suggestion to place it as a co-curriculum activity is incomprehensible. When next year’s focus is on repairing the dilapidated schools in both Sabah and Sarawak, where are you going to get money to build more swimming pools? Even if swimming pools can be built, how much budget are you going to allocate for the lifeguards? Will the ministry of education even be able to pay for the additional lifeguards? Which school will get the priority? Even the present co-curriculum activity, your minist

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

When will our varsities be free of Auku? Henry Koh   |  Published:  Today 1:34 pm   |  Modified:  Today 1:46 pm A +       A - COMMENT  | Earlier this week, our Education Minister Maszlee Malik announced that he would propose abolishing controversial restrictions on the rights of university students during the next Parliament sitting and he committed to ensure all politically motivated charges against university students would be dropped. This would be a monumental reform for Malaysia, and it can’t come soon enough. In June 2018, my organisation Fortify Rights published a 63-page  report  documenting the findings of a two-year investigation into the use of the Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 (Akta Universiti dan Kolej Universiti 1971 or Auku) to restrict the rights of university students in violation of international human rights law. We documented how the former BN government misused Auku and its by-regulations to constrain and influence universit