By Tay Pang Chong
Without a doubt, school is a very important place to nurture a future good citizenry of a country and for the government to overlook the dereliction of duty by teachers. It may do so over small indiscretions that might affect the efforts to nurture the children to becoming future model citizens. The school environment must be made to be an ideal situation where good character, mutual respect between the races, respect for the law and loyalty are nurtured. The environment must not be allowed to degenerate into something that could affect efforts to inculcate the 1Malaysia spirit.
Thus, encouraging indeed and most commendable that the Education Ministry has sent out circulars to schools that it is taking a serious view of teachers making racial remarks. It should have been done much earlier but it is still not too late even though the circular was sent out only after some teachers were making racial remarks especially a headmistress in Johor calling her non-Malay pupils penumpang and a headmaster in Kedah telling his Chinese pupils "to go back to China" on last year.
Racial polarisation in schools has been a problem for a long time and a lot of approaches are being attempted to make the children of the various races can interact, cooperate and mix with each other. Naturally their attitudes that keep them apart are a reflection of the attitudes and prejudices prevailing in homes and in the environment outside their homes. Therefore, it is very important for the schools to be places where the negative attitudes are discouraged so that the pupils will discard their prejudices among each others.
In a multiracial, multicultural and multireligious society like Malaysia, there is no place for sensitive racial, cultural and religious remarks and innuendos. Just as remarks deemed sexist are being outlawed so must remarks considered racial be avoided. This is important if we are to move forward in our efforts to promote racial harmony.
There is no denying that the best place to nurture this attitude is in the schools. They are the true incubators of the 1Malaysia spirit. If we are serious about promoting racial harmony and the 1Malaysia spirit we should not hesitate to deal strongly with teachers standing in the way of schools becoming a model Malaysian environment. At the same time the ministry must be careful when recruiting teachers. In this view, only those who have the right attitude for the profession and believe in multiracial Malaysia should be recruited.
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i wonder how can an educated people can utter out such an irresponsible statement, shame on Malaysia educational system....