Wong King Wei
KUCHING: Minister of Education Dr Maszlee Malik is responsible for issuing a public assurance that it is not the policy of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government to promote the use of physical penalty among spouses.
Padungan assemblyman Wong King Wei, who pointed this out today, said Maszlee might not be aware of the questions set in the Sept/Oct 2018 model examination paper for the Form Five Islamic Studies subject, but the minister should see to it that an internal investigation is conducted.
“It may be in the situation where Maszlee has no personal knowledge on the question set in the Islamic Studies examination paper but he should be responsible for the fault.
“He should answer to the public with regard to the question set by the examination board,” he told The Borneo Post when prompted for comments on the subject matter.
Litigation lawyer Siti Kasim recently tweeted to ask why a question on the Islamic Studies examination paper wanted students to ponder permissible ways to ‘hit a disobedient wife’.
Wong, who is deputy chief of national Democratic Action Party Socialist Youth (Dapsy), called for an investigation to be conducted internally to figure out why this kind of question had been set.
He said the Ministry of Education (MoE) is obligated to probe whether one particular examiner “is not fit to become an examiner due to his extreme thinking which is not acceptable to the public”.
“If it is so, he should be reprimanded and transferred to other department which should not affect the whole examination board or the policy of the government,” he said.
He said he concurred with Siti whereby the Education Minister should explain to all Malaysians and ensure the general public that “this is not the policy of the government”.
Not only does Maszlee have to give an explanation, the minister should also engage internal discipline and adjustment to be made internally, stressed Wong.
“No delay is endurable. Maszlee should not keep silent on this matter. I agree with Siti Kasim that he should be the one who comes out to explain the whole situation and make public assurance that this is not the policy of the government,” he said.
Wong reiterated that Maszlee must explain to avert misunderstanding that this was the policy of the new government.
In the Twitter post, Siti asked: “Is this what our Malay children (are) learning in school?? What is this Dr Maszlee Malik? Is this acceptable? What kind of trash are we teaching the kids in school?”
It is learnt that the controversial question carries three separate boxes under the header, with two of them filled and one left blank.
The two boxes state — ‘Not too overboard that it would cause injury’ and ‘Not on sensitive areas’ and the last one requires students to fill in their own permissible way.
An image of the controversial question.