Goodbye 2017 and welcome 2018!

0

TRADITIONALLY, many people use this time of the year to map out for themselves what to do in terms of specific tasks for implementation during the coming 12 months. Those plans or personal agendas also known as New Year’s resolutions may range from getting married to migrating to another country; to holidaying in a destination never visited before such as Mecca or Jerusalem; from buying a new car to offering oneself as a candidate in an election (within the next six months or so many people will be in this mental mode). Others will be happy with just resting at home and enjoying the company of their grandkids or talking to their orchids.

I have no new personal resolutions; there’s quite a stack of them remaining on the shelf gathering dust. If only I could implement one or two in the coming year, that would be good enough for me.

However, I have an outstanding wish-list, shortened in this article, to be practicable, and it is hoped that it may be considered by our politicians.

Education

Preschools. In the National Budget 2018, there is a financial allocation – per capita grant – of RM21.62 million for preschools. I wish that a portion of this money will be used for preschools in the longhouses and villages.

This part of our education policy appears to have been implemented haphazardly in the sense that the task of educating preschool children in certain districts has been entirely left to Kemas to carry out when Kemas cannot possibly cater for the needs of all children in most longhouses and villages in Sarawak.

Why not try out a pilot project in each division and see how the community in each locality would respond to such a school.

If I may suggest, the medium of communication in such schools should be that spoken by the majority of the children there – Iban, Bidayuh (from various locations), Melanau, Penan, Kayan, Kenyah, and so on.

Interim teachers

Since last month, interim school teachers in secondary schools in Sarawak have been the saddest lot as their employment was terminated, a cruel blow not only to themselves and their friends and families, but also to the institutes that had trained them as teachers.

At the time of writing, there has not been news about how many of them have gotten permanent jobs or are being employed by other agencies or working in the private sector. Why do we do this to our people? I don’t understand.

The impression one got last year of this issue was that there was not much that the government could do for the temporary teachers other than forcing them to take another examination. If the government cannot fit them into the teaching profession for which they were trained in the universities that teach students to be teachers without their having to go to a teachers’ institute, who can?

Automatic voter registration

Readers of this column must have been reading ad nauseam about this subject. I have no apologies to make for being insistent on discussing a subject so important to sustaining Malaysia as a parliamentary democracy. I don’t see any other form of government that is suitable to this country and its people.

I know some people who would turn this country into a theocracy, while others into a dictatorship disguised as a democracy. Ours is a plutocracy (government by the rich only). Not so bad. When I was overseas sometime last year, some of the newspapers referred to our country as a kleptocracy – government by politicians and officials having a recurrent urge to dip their fingers into public funds. That made me feel ashamed.

It is hoped that these kleptomaniacs are a dying species in our society and that more responsible new leaders are getting into the mainstream of responsible and honourable politics.

It is these new leaders that we pin our hopes on to sustain our parliamentary democracy. But it is crucial that a way must be found to address the deprivation of the millions of Malaysians though eligible to vote yet are not registered as such, if our democracy is allowed to grow from strength to strength.

I’m not saying that the Election Commission has lost the confidence of the people; I wish for the coming year for the EC to recommend adopting another registration system: automatic registration.

Local government elections  

I have no other motive in barking up this tree ad nauseam, and on pain of being declared a nuisance, so be it.

If a suggestion to improve government delivery system through the fully elected local governments in Sarawak is impracticable, please say so.

Compulsory voting

Shouldn’t we be keeping up with the Jones in Australia, Malta and Singapore? Electioneering may be cheaper if voters are forced by legislation to cast their ballots because the election candidates need not pay for the transport and allowances for their supporters as it has been the culture for the past 50 years. The voters must go to the polling stations on pain of a penalty. Try this out.

Another wish

How I wish I owned ‘TIME Magazine’ or at least be its chief editor for a day. Then I would use the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on its front cover for 2018.

I choose MACC for being the most vigorous government agency for its pursuit to eradicate corruption in the country found in high places, in the washing machines, under the carpets, in the cupboards, under the carpets, and in the jungle of Malaysia or in some vaults outside it.

No wonder that the officials of MACC have been under severe criticism by those who fear that those cupboards might suddenly open and skeletons fall out of them, or the washing machines suddenly stop because they are clogged by linen or wet dollar notes. And what about those notes flying out of the country for the past year(s)?

Finally, I wish my readers a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Comments can reach the writer via [email protected]