Sports should be ‘color blind’ – minister
The Youth and Sports Minister has criticised the move of a secondary school in Johor which is said to be setting conditions on some co-curricular activities for Form One students including sports which are only open to one race.
KUALA LUMPUR: Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Seri Reezal Merican Naina Merican has criticised the move of a secondary school in Johor which is said to be setting conditions on some cocurricular activities for Form One students including sports which are only open to one race.
Reezal Merican stressed that the action of the school is inappropriate and backward.
“Sports should be ‘color blind', across cultural borders and act as an agent of unity. There is no such policy or approach in Sports Policy. We want to democratise sports starting from schools,” he said yesterday.
Reezal Merican said in his Twitter site in reply to a posting of a Twitter user (@sharwinsubra05) who questioned the action of the secondary school in Batu Pahat, Johor.
The Twitter user also uploaded a picture of a letter which contained a list of clubs and associations as well as sports which were allegedly open to one race.
The list among others stated that Chinese language club is only open to Chinese students, football (Malays), basketball (Chinese), table tennis (Chinese), netball (Malays) and sepak takraw (Malays).
A check by Bernama found the action of the school was also criticised by netizens all over who questioned the rational of separating co-curricular activities according to race.
User @gustiadipati9 in a posting said ‘co-curricular activities should evenly distributed. Why separate according to race.
Another user @Eexyz85 wants action to be taken against the school. “The authorities should take action against the school,” the user said.
The posting has so far received more than 600 repeated postings and more than 300 ‘likes'.
Meanwhile the Education Ministry (KPM) will be taking swift and appropriate actions against the secondary school.
Shocked and disappointed over the matter, Senior Education Minister Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin said the guides issued by the school were against the objectives and foundation of implementing sport programmes in schools.
“Let our children play together regardless of who they are. We know that sports is a very effective medium to strengthen unity. In sports, all members of the team will play to win.
“Obviously, it never crossed their minds, I am from a different race, therefore….” As such sports is the vessel to foster the spirit of togetherness,” he said in a Facebook posting yesterday.