KOTA KINABALU: Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chief publicity officer Simon Chin yesterday advised Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik to consult all stakeholders concerned before introducing new policies.
He said the minister ought to consider the feasibility of his proposals prior to implementation.
For the past six months, Chin said Maszlee had announced many new policies such as the switch to black shoes, swimming lessons for students and abolishment of examinations for pupils from Primary 1 to 3 which have caught schools and parents off guard.
He said the minister’s announcement on July 19 that white shoes were to be replaced by black shoes starting next year had actually been implemented in countries including Singapore, Korea and Indonesia, but the reason the latter gave was unconvincing.
“Maszlee has explained that the decision to switch to black shoes would spare parents and students from washing soiled shoes.
“Nonetheless, wearing white shoes could actually instil discipline among students to keep their shoes clean.”
Besides, he said both black and white shoes should be washed and cleaned frequently for hygiene purposes.
For rural students, he said black shoes and black socks might attract mosquitoes as well.
Additionally, Chin said the Education Minister’s subsequent announcement on October 13 to defer the complete switch to black shoes to 2021 meant that there would be students wearing a mix of black and white shoes to schools between 2019 to 2020, which would seem quite disorderly.
He said the minister later decided to introduce swimming lessons for students next year, starting with schools located near public swimming pools and eventually expanded to schools nationwide.
Chin added that Maszlee had planned to make swimming lessons a compulsory co-curricular activity.
He said the Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had also proposed the swimming lessons following the increase of drowning incidents involving students.
Chin said countries including Taiwan, Finland, Australia and Netherlands have introduced swimming lessons for students.
The difference is these foreign schools have swimming pools in their compounds, unlike Malaysia, he said.
“Because of this, Maszlee called on hotel operators to offer their swimming pools to students for swimming lessons as part of their corporate social responsibility on November 21.”
He pointed out that the proposal to open up hotel swimming pools to students was inappropriate as it would incur extra maintenance costs for the hotels.
Besides, he said the facilities at hotels were meant for their in-house guests.
“Tourists who have paid for the expensive hotel rooms expect a comfortable time swimming or relaxing by the pool.
“Imagine a big group of children playing in the pool, running around and taking up the space, how would the tourists feel?
“It will certainly leave a bad impression on them.”
Moreover, Chin said most hotels did not have sufficient safety precautions for swimming lessons, like lifeguards.
“Who will bear the responsibility in the event of an accident at a hotel pool? The Education Ministry, teacher, coach or hotel?”
He said there must be proper and comprehensive planning in place before introducing swimming lessons for students nationwide.
On October 31, Chin said Maszlee made another announcement to replace examinations in Primary 1 to 3 with more objective assessments.
However, he was worried that pupils might be unable to cope with examinations when they progressed to Primary 4.
“Does the ministry plans to abolish examinations from Primary 4 to 6 as well?”
Chin also said the new policy on internal assessment might be an additional burden for teachers, and had the risk of being biased.
“More importantly, will the assessment give students the impression that their priority is to please teachers in order to get good grades instead of studying hard?”
While the national education system was in need of review and reform, Chin hoped that the Maszlee would consult and discuss with his officers, principals, board of governors, parents-teachers associations, alumni and other relevant bodies before announcing any new proposals or plans.
“Don’t rush into decisions and make the same mistake of keep changing the education policy like the previous government did.”
He also hoped that the Education Ministry would look into other more urgent education issues such as the recognition of Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) and overweight schoolbags to expedite education reform in our country.