Ok, this complaint has been coming for a long time. I'm sorry if I seem like I just keep on bagging Malaysia, but it seems this particular issue isn't going away anytime soon, and I really want to find out who is responsible for it.
The topic of today's rant is:
Saturday classes in Malaysian schools.
Where do I begin? Well, I'll put the whole thing into context first I guess. I own and run an English language tuition centre in Malaysia. I am responsible for the teachers, students and anything else that happens under my roof. We teach the Cambridge ESOL syllabus from the UK.
Obviously, all our students are Malaysians, and most of them, say 70-80% are students still attending school.
This means that they have to follow the Malaysian school timetable and calendar. This would be fine and dandy, because our young learners (those from 6 -12 years old) have all their classes with us on Saturdays. No clash. Easy for us to organise, easy for parents to remember, easy for the students to get in the routine of.
But what no one can predict, is when the Malaysian government is going to drop a wee bomb on you at the last possible minute and order your children to attend a 'Saturday replacement class' for some public holiday either been or coming. The ripple effect of this, nay TSUNAMI effect, is plain for anyone to see. Family outings or trips out of town are ruined, tuition centres like mine face havoc with irate parents and the poor kids lose one of their precious 2 days off a week.
Is it really that hard to plan and organise a school calendar a year ahead of schedule? If we can work out the mathematics and other mindbogglingly complex problems in sending a man to the moon, can't someone at the Ministry of Education arrange a f--king calendar for the following year?!?! Is it really that hard?
Most public holidays here are for religious reasons. Fair enough. No problem there. But that still doesn't account for how the system is completely broken and no one seems to see a problem if a public holiday happens to land on a school day, making the kids lose a day. Couldn't they predict that, plan for it and release a calendar to the world saying that everything has been taken into account and all school days and public holidays are accounted for??? I COULD DO IT FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.
Just once, I'd like to meet the education minister and blast 7 colours of shit out of him for his complete ineptitude in his job, like his predecessors before him. I'd embarrass his royal holiness so much he'd have me deported that same day - but I would have stuck a big f--king pin in his pompous hide to show him that all is not well in the kingdom of bolehland.
For years we have had to put up with this complete rubbish. Parents who have 'Saturday replacement class' dropped on their lap at the last minute, tuition centres running around frantically trying to reschedule classes and the poor kids having to drag those inhumanely heavy bags to school for another day.
Enough is enough. I have a good mind to send a letter to the ministry of education with as many signatures on it as possible to highlight something a 14 year old could fix.
Fat, overpaid, underworked bastards. Your time is coming.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Um.. interesting... Guess you're still not used to "1 Malaysia" culture. I'd say we've been really (or, forced to be) flexible to the "ever-changing" but LAME policy since the day we're born here. There's nothing we can do except learning how to adapt ourselves. Let's view this positively. I know this is very Asian, but somehow it's a win-win situation. As we persevere through hard times, I see this as a learning opportunity, and often an added advantage to us.
ReplyDeleteBut you might question, "Why must we be conditioned to something stupid going on?" No choice. Examples: We, the non-bumiputeras, don't have any say on the privilege granted to the "special people". Hilarious news everyday from recurring sodomy to pornstar-leader, there's nothing impossible in bolehland! LOL!! Well, I'm proud to be part of non-bumiputeras for we don't any leverage/support, but we still manage to survive. To date, I don't see we're any inferior than the bumiputeras!
Kids in Malaysia are heavily loaded, but I'm pretty sure they're better off compared to those in kiasuland (Singapore). The thing is that they're working both hard and SMART. Unlike here, we have those wicked bitches arranging inept and cumbersome systems to make people here busy.
Great that you have all these rants and raves in your blog. Perfectly done. I'm sure you can do something on it. Hope they would revert to your letter and take corrective action.
Let bolehland gets the hell outta third world!