Next education minister must know not to ‘touch’ certain issues — Chai
KUCHING: The person appointed to fill the vacant education minister post must be experienced enough to steer clear of issues that can cause controversy in a multicultural country, says Sarawak United Association of Chinese Aided Primary School Boards of Management secretary-general Jonathan Chai.
He said while he felt sorry for Maszlee, the former minister had failed to live up to the people’s expectations in his bid to revamp the Malaysian education system.
“I think the person for the job must be seasoned enough to know what should not be ‘touched’, as certain issues are likely to create controversies if they are not handled properly,” Chai told The Borneo Post when asked for his take on Maszlee’s abrupt resignation last week.
A news portal had reported Sunday that Maszlee was advised by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to resign as education minister as he had failed to comply with directives from the federal cabinet, particularly on the Jawi issue, free internet service for schools, and free breakfast programme for pupils.
Apart from the aforementioned issues, Chai said another policy introduced by Maslzee that drew flak from the public included the switch to black shoes for students, as well as the suggestion that hotel operators open up their swimming pools for students to learn how to swim and take up life-saving lessons.
“He seemed like he lost the focus on other more pressing and important issues like the revamp of our education system, and to allow our students to have opportunities or better access to acquire knowledge of science and information technology in order to prepare themselves for the Industrial Revolution 4.0,” added Chai.
He said while some quarters had pointed to some of the good policies introduced by Maszlee, such as the abolishment of examinations for pupils in Primary 1 to 3; the repair or reconstruction of dilapidated schools; and emphasis on special education for underprivileged children, these were ultimately overshadowed by his controversial policies.
He also pointed out that the controversy surrounding the introduction of Jawi writing in the Bahasa Melayu curriculum for vernacular schools could have been avoided had there been better communication and discussion with stakeholders.
Chai said he hopes Maszlee’s successor would be someone with extensive experience in education, possibly even someone from the academic sector.
“This could be done by appointing the candidate as a senator in order to join the cabinet. In fact, Tun Mahathir had applied that channel previously by appointing Tan Sri Musa Mohamad as the minister of education during his previous tenure as premier,” he said.