'Punish schools making own rules' call
Published on: Friday, January 30, 2015
Labuan: Schools that make their own rules and ignore or are ignorant of important directives issued by the Education Ministry should not merely be warned but the concerned officer penalised as a warning.Retired Education Officer for the Interior Zone Datuk Zaini Mat Isa said this in support of the warning by the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who is also the Education Minister.Concerned over continued complaints by parents of some schools imposing their rules, Muhyiddin said in Kuala Lumpur recently that all school regulations should be in line with the ministry's directive.ADVERTISEMENT The DPM's warning came in the wake of the latest incident involving a school teacher sending home a student for wearing "baju kurung"The student was told that the attire was meant exclusively for Muslim students and as for non-Muslims it was the pinafore. Muhyiddin explained that the baju kurung was the accepted national dress and the school cannot reprimand students over this.Zaini, who was also the former State Assemblyman, said: "During my days as an Education Officer we hardly had such problems because school heads or teachers did not try to be too clever. They would refer to the State Education Department for advice when in doubt over certain matters.ADVERTISEMENT "But these days teachers with impressive scrolls feel they were entitled to make important decisions unilaterally overlooking the Ministry directive and that we live in a plural society."Zaini said that it was good that the DPM put his foot down in the matter as incidents like these trouble many parents.
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He said that if school staff spent time catching up on news they would have learned from incidents happening in schools and be more careful "but unfortunately most of them were too pre-occupied with their world."He said school incidents in the past happened mostly in peninsula states but now seem to have spread to Sabah as well.He cited the controversy over students barred from wearing the crucifix in a school in Keningau which was finally solved with the intervention of the State Director.In Labuan in 2012, a 13-year-old student was forced to wear the "tudung" (headscarf) and this traumatised the student to the extent of not wanting to go to school. She was even fined a token sum of RM1 and asked to borrow a tudung if she did not have one.The parents who had sleepiness nights over this wrote a 3-page memo to the Education Ministry prompting the DPM to say children in schools should not be forced to wear tudung.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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"This was the right of the parents , they could not be forced. Though the school made amends, it was too late as the parents pulled their daughter out," he said.He said another worrying issue the Ministry should look into is the growing incidence of hooligans in schools.