You Are Driving Me Nuts
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 ministry is incapable of supervising, but instead, coming out with all sorts of excuses that a truly good uniformed group cannot be recognised by the ministry for exemption purposes. Imagine a scouts group without the uniforms and four-season drum group can be considered a uniformed group!
Trust me, when you have swimming pools in schools, you will get more cases of drowning happening in schools. As one netcitizen pointed out, there is already a shortage of physical education teachers, so I can expect teachers will now be under more pressure to take care of some 40 children at any point in time when they are learning to swim in the swimming pool.
I wonder what you would do if you had been the Education Minister, when the accident involving a group of young cyclists happened in Johor? Would you then moot the idea of cycling as a co-curriculum activity in schools to teach the children how to ride their bicycles safely?
This is how ridiculous it is with your ideas of having swimming lessons for school children when you mooted the idea. I hope you now realise why the netcitizens are hammering you all over.
There are indeed many grand ideas, but it is a question of what is practical and a priority at this juncture.
There are so many big issues that you are unable to address effectively. These are the issues that should be dealt with first, before you can even think of mooting more new ideas.
For example, there are so many issues in Chinese primary schools. Have you even stepped into a Chinese school? Or, a Tamil school where a teacher had slashed herself “accidentally” when she was harassed by the school principal?
Recently, there were a couple of cases involving bullying of teachers by the school principals. What are your mechanisms put in place for these victims to complain to the ministry of education, without being harassed by their school heads? Has it been effective?
May I remind you that a few teachers have even taken their lives because they were constantly being harassed by their superiors? Suicide is a complicated subject, but we should not dismiss the possibility that constant pressure at the workplace could have contributed to these suicides involving helpless school teachers.
A channel should be open for teachers to complain to the ministry and if need be, the principals who are acting as tyrants should be sacked or moved to some desk jobs. There are many more good teachers out there who deserve to be promoted.
This is more important, if we are serious about solving such issues, than to talk about subordinates appraising their superiors. Such concept can apply within a smaller organisation, but how is your ministry going to implement this?
If this is still in the works, my advice to you is to just keep your big mouth shut rather than to be ridiculed by so many netcitizens. In the past, I tried to do some damage control but I too have given up on you.
I wish to remind you that you are in this position because the people voted for Pakatan Harapan, not because you have contributed much to the development of our education system in this country.
You have no guts to carry out the promises made in the election manifesto. It should not take even more than three months to recognise the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) as I have mentioned in an earlier post. After all, Barisan Nasional had this promise carved into their manifesto as well after they conducted their own study. So, why the delay?
For goodness sake, the Universities and University Colleges Act (UCCA) has been a contentious issue for so long and the manifesto has promised to abolish the Act. So, why do you still hold on so dearly to it?
I hate to say this that I also placed a lot of hope on you after Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad agreed to let go the post. I was supportive of his offer to become the Minister of Education, being a more experienced man, but he respected the election manifesto.
But my disappointment is that Saifuddin Abdullah was not picked as Minister of Education. Instead, you were picked, and I thought of giving you a chance to prove yourself. But, in less than six months, we have already seen how you perform.
What good can we expect of bringing positive development in this country’s education system? I don’t know.
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.
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 ministry is incapable of supervising, but instead, coming out with all sorts of excuses that a truly good uniformed group cannot be recognised by the ministry for exemption purposes. Imagine a scouts group without the uniforms and four-season drum group can be considered a uniformed group!
Trust me, when you have swimming pools in schools, you will get more cases of drowning happening in schools. As one netcitizen pointed out, there is already a shortage of physical education teachers, so I can expect teachers will now be under more pressure to take care of some 40 children at any point in time when they are learning to swim in the swimming pool.
I wonder what you would do if you had been the Education Minister, when the accident involving a group of young cyclists happened in Johor? Would you then moot the idea of cycling as a co-curriculum activity in schools to teach the children how to ride their bicycles safely?
This is how ridiculous it is with your ideas of having swimming lessons for school children when you mooted the idea. I hope you now realise why the netcitizens are hammering you all over.
There are indeed many grand ideas, but it is a question of what is practical and a priority at this juncture.
There are so many big issues that you are unable to address effectively. These are the issues that should be dealt with first, before you can even think of mooting more new ideas.
For example, there are so many issues in Chinese primary schools. Have you even stepped into a Chinese school? Or, a Tamil school where a teacher had slashed herself “accidentally” when she was harassed by the school principal?
Recently, there were a couple of cases involving bullying of teachers by the school principals. What are your mechanisms put in place for these victims to complain to the ministry of education, without being harassed by their school heads? Has it been effective?
May I remind you that a few teachers have even taken their lives because they were constantly being harassed by their superiors? Suicide is a complicated subject, but we should not dismiss the possibility that constant pressure at the workplace could have contributed to these suicides involving helpless school teachers.
A channel should be open for teachers to complain to the ministry and if need be, the principals who are acting as tyrants should be sacked or moved to some desk jobs. There are many more good teachers out there who deserve to be promoted.
This is more important, if we are serious about solving such issues, than to talk about subordinates appraising their superiors. Such concept can apply within a smaller organisation, but how is your ministry going to implement this?
If this is still in the works, my advice to you is to just keep your big mouth shut rather than to be ridiculed by so many netcitizens. In the past, I tried to do some damage control but I too have given up on you.
I wish to remind you that you are in this position because the people voted for Pakatan Harapan, not because you have contributed much to the development of our education system in this country.
You have no guts to carry out the promises made in the election manifesto. It should not take even more than three months to recognise the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) as I have mentioned in an earlier post. After all, Barisan Nasional had this promise carved into their manifesto as well after they conducted their own study. So, why the delay?
For goodness sake, the Universities and University Colleges Act (UCCA) has been a contentious issue for so long and the manifesto has promised to abolish the Act. So, why do you still hold on so dearly to it?
I hate to say this that I also placed a lot of hope on you after Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad agreed to let go the post. I was supportive of his offer to become the Minister of Education, being a more experienced man, but he respected the election manifesto.
But my disappointment is that Saifuddin Abdullah was not picked as Minister of Education. Instead, you were picked, and I thought of giving you a chance to prove yourself. But, in less than six months, we have already seen how you perform.
What good can we expect of bringing positive development in this country’s education system? I don’t know.
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