Shed a little light

BORNEO POST readers were outraged by its front page picture on Dec 4, showing more than 20 boys and girls of a primary boarding school in Belaga, sleeping all crammed up in a stuffy room.

The girls’ dormitory of the school – SK Punan Ba – collapsed on Jan 31 this year, and after the initial knee-jerk pledge to build a new one as a replacement, nothing has been done so far and the pupils have been sleeping ‘like packed sardines’ in one of the school offices.

A concerned parent sent a handphone snapshot to highlight the plight of the pupils in the hope that the authorities could be stirred into action.

The next day, Assistant Minister of Culture and Heritage Liwan Lagang sent out another shockwave when he said SK Punan Ba was not the only school to be neglected in the district.

According to Liwan, the Belaga assemblyman, many other schools also faced similar harsh conditions and needed urgent repairs, including the dormitory at Long Busang, another settlement in the area, which was gutted recently.

Although it is an open secret that many of our rural schools are old or poorly maintained, the furious reader reactions to the pathetic condition of SK Punan Ba show they feel strongly against the lackadaisical attitude of the authorities in addressing this shameful situation.

The angry feelings of readers remind me of James Taylor’s song: There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist, there is a hunger in the centre of the chest, there is a passage through the darkness and the mist … someone shed a little light to the gloomy day.

Happily, it is not all gloom for rural schools as an email I received from Chang Yi, a former educationist, now leading a very enriching retirement life travelling, writing and doing researches on Chinese tradition and food, would attest.

“Not all rural schools are in such poor shape,” she said.

Chang Yi had just visited Sekolah Kebangsaan Bario, the second school adopted by the Sarawak Women for Women Society (SWS) under the Smart Partnership Programme.

“Management is good as every arm of the machinery is functioning at its best – right down to the gardener and cook in this school,” she noted.

She shared with me pictures of the school and the students’ activities, singling out, in particular, a snapshot of the dormitory with this observation: “The double-decker beds of SK Bario are very well-maintained. Dora Tigan is a good headmistress. She is a computer science teacher and had attended some courses in the Maktab Perguruan in Miri when I was a lecturer.

“Schools in the rural are badly managed because although very often headmasters or headmistresses are willing to work hard, there is no response from the real bosses in Kuala Lumpur. The communication is bad.”

SK Bario, located in the Kelabit Highlands in Baram, has 162 pre-school and primary one pupils, and 12 teachers. The vast majority of the pupils are Kelabits while the rest comprise Penan, Malay, Lun Bawang, Chinese, Indian and Kadazan.

From the perspective of SK Bario, I see the picture of able leadership in the headmistress, backed by her team of dedicated teachers and staff, and most importantly, supported by a pro-active community.

From my childhood experience of going to a small rural school, I know the bonds run deep in small rural communities.

We might not have the best facilities but the community ensured the most basic needs of a school such as a conducive learning environment and an adequate and safe building – were provided for the children.

Back in the good old days, there was no unnecessary bureaucracy – all we had was a community thriving on strong ties of love and hope and a burning desire to see their children grow and bond in a decent place of learning.

However, the role of the community in maintaining a school has shifted more to the government.

The attitude now is that it is the government’s duty to provide financial support to schools although it must be emphasised that the community’s continued support for education, especially in the rural areas, remains indisputably vital.

The close link between a school and the community can enhance our children’s sense of purpose in complementing efforts to prepare them to become useful citizens and productive workers in the future.

Sharing the same line of thought is this reader’s email to the Borneo Post: “Let us move forward with positive action and do something about this. Will Borneo Post shoulder this move as a civic duty towards humanity?”

It is heartening to note from a recent interview that Welfare, Women and Community Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah is now promoting the value of volunteerism through her ministry’s We care and we share programme.

She said: “We want to promote the value of love, kindness, generosity and compassion. We want to instill and nurture the culture of social responsibility through community involvement, and encourage people to care and share with one another.

“We must not let modernity take away the kindness of human nature as the country continues to progress and move forward. In fact, the government has declared 2013 as year of volunteerism.”

As Jack Shekton, founder of small schools cooperative, aptly put it in an interview on a life connected to community: In schools not connected to place, kids don’t have a role and they’re anonymous; the teachers are anonymous; the places are anonymous. I don’t believe morality is a function of anonymity.

Now that we have marked Sk Punan Ba on the map, it’s no longer anonymous. So what’s the task standing before us now?