Amid silence over Seri Pristana, Pakatan touts education blueprint failure: KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 10 — The Education Ministry’s alleged failure to act on several school incidents like the SK Seri Pristana shower room fiasco and the sale of “smart pills” in Johor is proof enough that its National Education Blueprint will not come to fruition, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) said today. The opposition pact said the ministry’s action or inaction in at least six incidents give little confidence that the government has the political will to implement the blueprint, a comprehensive education overhaul plan recently launched by the Najib administration. “The Ministry of Education have had many nice sounding Education Blueprints in the past but have failed at the implementation stage. “Even though the Education Performance and Delivery Unit (PADU) will be established to oversee the implementation of this latest Education Blueprint, the response and the lack thereof on the part of the Minister of Education to specific revelations in the education system leaves us with little confidence that this latest Education Blueprint will be properly implemented,” the opposition bloc’s education taskforce said in a statement today. Chief among these incidents, PR said, is the recent controversy at SK Seri Pristana in Sungai Buloh over the school’s use of a shower room to double as a canteen for non-Muslim students to eat in during the Ramadan month. The racially-charged incident remained in media headlines for weeks. In the latest development, the detention of a parent over allegations that he had threatened the school headmaster sparked another round of protests and reportedly resulted in several students opting out of the school. PR also cited concerns over how school children were questioned during the entire debacle without supervision of their parents, saying this would only affect the public’s confidence in national schools. “These actions does considerable harm to creating confidence in national schools and will lead more parents to vote with their feet and choose not to send their children to national schools,” the taskforce said. In the Johor incident, PR said the Education Ministry had failed to adequately respond to the sale of the “Dimensi 108” chewing tablets, a “smart pill” that was purportedly endorsed by the Council of Headmasters in the Mersing and Kota Tinggi districts. When the incident came to light, the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) immediately issued a statement to say that the pills are “nothing more than sugar.” According a report by national daily The Star, MMA president Datuk Dr NKS Tharmaseelan said “95 per cent of the pills consists of sugar and other carbohydrates.” But federal opposition lawmakers cried foul, calling it a crime for teachers to force these “smart pills” on their students. “This scandal is a reflection of the Minister’s ability to implement Thrust 6: Empower JPNs, PPDs and Schools to Customise Solutions Based on Need and Thrust 8: Transform Ministry Delivery Capabilities and Capacity,” PR said in its statement, referring to one of the 11 thrusts listed in the education blueprint. “If the Minister if not able to come down hard on these errant Headmasters, it gives us very little reason to believe that the power to be devolved to the state and local education agencies will not be abused,” it added. Apart from these two incidents, PR noted that Putrajaya has also failed to respond to accusations that the Physical Education (PE) “diplomas” given to teachers by the United States Sports Academy (USSA) under an Education Ministry programme was not only at an exorbitant cost of RM27,000 for a six-month stint but was also a mere certificate-level programme and not a diploma. The scandal hit media headlines earlier this year after it was revealed that the ministry had inked a RM22.9 million deal with the USSA for the programme, through its local agent KH Sports World Sdn Bhd, a firm allegedly helmed by a Puteri Umno leader. “If such a ‘diploma’ that falls short of MQA (Malaysian Qualifications Agency) standards for a diploma can be offered, it calls into question the fact that other training and retraining programs under this Education Blueprint will also be improperly awarded and result in sub-standard outcomes,” PR said. The opposition pact said the Education Ministry had also gone against its own pledge in Thrust 11 of the education blueprint when it refused to divulge the passing marks for SPM in General Mathematics, Additional Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and English simply because this is classified under the Official Secrets Act (OSA). Thrust 11 is to “increase transparency for direct public accountability”. “If even passing marks are classified for national security purposes under the OSA, what is to say that the passing mark for the English SPM paper will not be further decreased when the compulsory pass is put into effect in 2016?” PR asked. Next, PR said the ministry had also failed to explain why YTL Corporation, a firm with no experience in education software, was given lucrative contracts to rollout a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) platform for students, teachers and parents, and to supply every student with a Chromebook under the 1 Student 1 Device policy. According to the opposition bloc, the Chromebooks were supplied to the ministry at a price allegedly higher than its market rate. “The awarding of these contracts call into question Thrust 10 which is to ‘Maximise Student Outcomes for Every Ringgit’,” it said. Finally, PR said the ministry had also failed to assign 460 DPLI (Diploma Perguruan Lepas Ijazah) graduates to national-type schools that are still lacking teachers. “It reflects a poor planning on the part of MOE and it is also a total waste of resources, again in contrary to the commitment of ‘maximising efficiency’,” it said. These graduates, said PR, were interim teachers before they were enrolled into the course where they even enjoyed monthly allowances of RM1,300. “These six examples provides concrete evidence that the Minister of Education does not have the political will nor the desire to properly implement the 11 thrusts outlined in the National Education Blueprint Final Document,” PR said. dlvr.it/3xKt0j
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 03:04:31 +0000
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