By Peter Sibon
KUCHING, Aug 7: The federal government, especially the Ministry of Education (MOE) should focus on more critical and bigger issues affecting the national education policy such as the National Education Blueprint or Masterplan instead on trivial issues like black shoes and khat calligraphy.
Sarawak Federation of Chinese Associations president Datuk Richard Wee said he was baffled how the MOE has become entangled in trivial issues when more crucial issues such as the recognition of the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) and dilapidated schools in Sarawak were not addressed properly.
“Personally I think the Jawi issue is a small issue compared to so many important matters that MOE needs to handle and resolve.
“Like the National Education Blueprint or Masterplan, the dilapidated state of our schools, the quality of our teachers, recognition of UEC, standard of our English and SPM certificate and many other associated problems that we are facing.
“Instead of focussing on all these important issues, things like black shoes for students, swimming lessons for students using hotel pools and now appreciating Jawi as compulsory, totally baffles me. I am dumbfounded,” Wee told DayakDaily here today.
MOE recently announced that khat calligraphy will be implemented in Primary Four starting next year.
Meanwhile, Wee, who is also the chairman of the Management Committee of Kuching Chung Hua Middle Schools No. 1, 3 and 4 echoed the sentiment of an open letter which has been circulating online.
The letter, purportedly written by a former English and Literature teacher called Carol Jennifer Soars, had urged Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to lead the country as a real statesman for all Malaysians regardless of their race and religion.
“I have always had great respect for you and when at the tender age of 93, you chose to lead us again, I hopped on the bandwagon to rid our country of kleptocracy. And so with all of us behind you, we won a great battle. And I need to reiterate, We did. Not you. You were just the catalyst. All Malaysians, of every creed and colour voted your government in. Yes, we won a great battle. However, what you do need to hear though, is that we are losing the war,” Wee said, quoting a section of the letter.
Wee said the country is now losing the war against race and religion. — DayakDaily
