Solve the main issues first, Maszlee

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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 2000, then re-issued again in 2014. However, enforcement by the local District Education Offices and the State Education Department is what is lacking.

This emboldens the principals of schools who blatantly made it compulsory for children to buy more workbooks than is required. This is done under the pretense that one workbook is for the first half of the year and another workbook for the second half.

On top of that, children are also asked to buy two additional resource books. For one subject, Bahasa Malaysia, for example, a Standard Four child has 426 pages to study for the whole year.

Even though complaints were raised with the ministry, efforts to solve this issue have been lacking. The ministry should conduct frequent checks on the weight of bags in schools. Textbooks supplied by the ministry should be allowed to be split into smaller volumes so that children do not have to bring the entire textbook to school.

While Maszlee is busy talking about the swimming lessons and Civic lessons (which comes with an additional book), these school children have to carry their heavy bags to school.

By leaving it to the creativity of school principals, Maszlee will be surprised that his good intentions are ignored. After all, this issue has been haunting our children for many years. If it can be left to the school principals, we would have solved the problem a long time ago.

This is a sign of the minister's lack of experience in handling important issues like the heavy school bags. I was shocked when I listened to an interview on TV3 regarding his critics.

If Maszlee would not listen to the people's views and complaints, how can he bring about the much needed reforms in our schools?

Read this.

END.

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