By Stephen Ng
After a letter to Education Minister, Maszlee Malik and two other persons in the Ministry of Education dated August 14, 2018, I find it hard to understand that the minister fails to give consideration to my appeal on behalf of the Royal Rangers.
Like the Boys and Girls Brigade, the Rangers is a uniformed group that is registered under the Assemblies of God Council. As a church-based group, we view the activities as being comprehensive in much the same way the Muslim parents want their children to attend their own mosque-based activities.
According to one of the minister's assistants, the minister would not intervene with the decision made by the Co-curriculum Unit. Autonomy was the word used. According to her, the unit has the right to make its own decision, and the minister would not intervene.
But what is a letter of appeal to the minister for, especially when I, a member of the public and a parent (therefore, a stakeholder), write officially to the minister for his consideration.
I feel that the points given by the two officers at the Co-curriculum Unit were unreasonable; hence, the need to bring the appeal to the person overall responsible for the ministry -- Maszlee Malik.
My support of him has waned since then, as many of the decisions he made appear to be coming from someone inexperienced in running an organisation, what's more, a ministry that affects the future generation of Malaysians.
I do not want to go into the other reasons why I feel he is not delivering the Pakatan Harapan's promises after winning the general election. You can read it all in another blogpost. This blog has hit over 5000 readers within a short period.
I have also written a letter to the editor of The Star which appeared recently. This will continue on for a number of years, as I do not see why just asking for exemption is so difficult for the minister to accept.
If autonomy is the explanation, I think I have very little faith in the ministry that he is helming. They gave the explanation that children who are already attending the Royal Rangers cannot be exempted from attending other uniformed groups.
They pointed out that unless the Rangers activities are held in schools and Bible lessons are removed from its activities, it cannot be recognised by the Ministry of Education.
Their comment is insensible as the Rangers had never asked to run the activities on school compound during school hours and this is a uniformed group meant for children of Christian parents.
My argument is that the children are already attending the uniformed group from 1pm to 4pm every Sunday. This should meet the requirement under the "1Sukan, 1Murid" policy. It is certainly better than having the children participate in a scouts activity from 11.30am - 12.30pm.
The objective of having "1Sukan,1Murid" is to encourage an all-rounder education. Therefore, the ministry should not create a bigger burden for children who are already attending the Royal Rangers on Sundays.
I have also posted video clips of parents who asked for the exemption on behalf of their children and others who are already attending the Rangers in a number of outposts. Some of these video clips had also been sent to the minister's officer.
In one of the video clip, a parent even disclosed that her son has to attend a scouts group activities in school but for the past two years, the school had never asked the children to buy their uniforms. This is happening under the supervision of the two officers at the Co-Curriculum Unit.
But sadly, either the minister has no guts to override the decision by his officers at the Co-Curriculum Unit or he simply chooses to ignore the appeal by parents.
If I have a complaint that is not properly handled by an organisation, my next line of action would be to write to the chief executive officer of the organisation.
This reminds me that when I had a complaint against Standard Chartered Bank and the manager did not do a good job, I wrote to the CEO. He chose to ignore my letter.
As a result, I decided to write directly to the Group CEO in United Kingdom. Within less than 24 hours, the Group CEO responded with a positive note that the matter would be taken care of. This restored my confidence in the bank.
Even when Fadillah Yusof was Works Minister and I told him about a big sinkhole in my child's school, he only needed to press the button and JKR officers came to the school with the officers from Ministry of Education. After 18 months of silence, the ministry officers told the principal that there is money, but under a different category. Before long, the sink hole was covered up.
What difference does it make when Pakatan Harapan took over Putrajaya when its minister is incapable of making a good decision after reading our appeal?
Where there a will, there is a way. But, in this case, I can only say that there is no will to solve issues, but only excuses. There is not even a response to the letter that I wrote in August and now is October.
What difference is this new minister compared to previous ministers under the old regime?
END.
