Chong Chieng Jen
KUCHING: The gap in education standard between rural and urban areas in the country is quite wide, claimed Bandar Kuching MP Chong Chieng Jen recently.
Chong who will be one of the seven speakers featured at the Dec 12 KTS Group of Companies education forum said: “The gap will get wider apart unlike that in the USA.
He said this was based on his observation that wealthy parents could afford to send their children to prestigious schools and tuition classes while ordinary citizens could only send their children to public schools or those located nearby their residential areas.
Most ordinary people could not afford tuition fees, said Chong.
The education forum will be held at KTS Garden in Pending in conjunction with the group’s 50th anniversary celebration.
He said in the USA, an advanced country, the gap of education standard for the haves and have nots is getting closer together.
Chong who is also national DAP vice chairman, state DAP secretary and Kota Sentosa assemblyman said the Malaysian education system should now emphasises on the country’s unique multi racial society.
He said the education policy should be implemented based on multi-racial and multi-lingual society aspects and therefore should be diversified.
He said the new education policy announced earlier was ‘disappointing’ as there was no drastic change. He said parents in the city had better living conditions and they also could afford to send their children for further study overseas and the children are assured of better employment opportunities.
He said children in rural area sometimes do not have chance to go for further study at higher education institution and they ended up being less competitive at the job market.
He urged the government to improve the education facilities and human resources in rural area to provide a fair chance to everyone to receive standardised education.
He said the country should nurture more graduates with sharp mind but the government seemed to limit them if based on the existing policies.
In his opinion, graduates will be the future leaders to help in transforming the society and this is more reason why some policies have to be improved.