LETTER | Education Ministry needs to get its house in order

LETTER | The Education Ministry should wake up, stop politicking, and do its job. Our children’s education should not be your political ballgame.

You don’t have the guts to do the right thing in your own backyard, no wonder private and international schools are mushrooming like nobody’s business.

The Education Ministry is supposed to be led by passionate, dedicated, and properly trained educators, not politicians like Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek. How could Fadhlina allow her aide Atiqah Syairah Shaharuddin to say something unproductive to the media that doesn’t have a positive impact on the rakyat’s education?

In an Education Ministry circular dated March 18, 2024, schools under the ministry were told to start an activity called Penghayatan Hadith 40 Imam Nawawi.

It is highly commendable to emphasise teaching Muslim students this. However, teachers at my child’s school have been sending religious communications regarding this activity to all students and parents.

They have sent these messages through the class WhatsApp chat group meant for communicating with parents and students on school or class announcements.

On two occasions, I politely informed the class teacher to exclude me from the sharing of Hadith 40 as I am not a Muslim. He just told me to ignore it as it is only meant for Muslims.

I even proposed that the sharing can be directly sent to Muslim parents but I was told since the majority in the chat group is Muslim, I should just ignore it.

The worst part was, as I was feeling uncomfortable in continuously receiving the religious sharing, which became mixed up with announcements from the school, I raised my request to be excluded from receiving the Hadith 40 in my WhatsApp, and the class teacher accused me of trying to prevent them from carrying out the ministry’s instruction on sharing the Hadith 40 to Muslims.

Why is the Education Ministry forcing non-Muslim parents to receive Hadith 40?

Why do non-Muslims in government schools, particularly a school meant for all races and religions - ie Sekolah Kebangsaan - have to ignore religious messages and have their rights disrespected because we are not in the majority group?

When I told the class teacher to retract his accusation, he refused until today. And when I asked about how my child was doing in school, he had no answer for me because he didn’t care.

In fact, my child was bullied in school for years despite anti-bullying campaigns ongoing in school. My child, a non-Muslim student, was bullied and the same class teacher, and the school did nothing about it but rather forced me to receive Hadith 40.

Even before this, my children were forced to sit in Islamic classes because no other programmes or classes were arranged for non-Muslim students during that period (Tasmik).

Non-Muslim students were told to just sit at the back of the class and do their own work or even sleep if they liked.

Despite the numerous times my children have told the teachers that they are not Muslims and wouldn’t want to sit in the Tasmik classes, the teachers ignored them and forced them to sit in.

Every year, I had to write letters for my children to carry with them to show to the teachers in case they were forced to sit in the same class again.

I even once wrote an email to then deputy education minister Teo Nie Ching some years ago and I never received any reply from her.

Why are the non-Muslim students’ rights not respected in Sekolah Kebangsaan while we never do the same to the Muslim students?

As I recall, I didn’t send my children to Sekolah Agama but rather Sekolah Kebangsaan. The name Kebangsaan means national, meaning the school is meant for all Malaysians regardless of their background, including religion.

But it seems there is a process of wiping out non-Muslim students from Sekolah Kebangsaan. Is the Education Ministry for all rakyat or only for certain groups of rakyat?

Does the ministry really care about the education of our children or are they simply just interested in their political careers? How many more non-Muslim students and their parents would have to go through unfair treatment in Sekolah Kebangsaan?

Meanwhile, all you leaders in the Education Ministry, your income is from taxpayers’ money, including from parents who are both Muslims and non-Muslims. So, our children should be allowed to study in peace, and our right to say “No” should be respected.

It is also time for the rakyat to say “No” to politicians leading an important ministry like the Education Ministry.

Children, who are our future leaders, are put in the wrong hands if the Education Ministry continues to be led by politicians who prioritise maintaining their seats and pocket sizes and not the welfare of the students.

How many more students do government schools have to lose to private and international schools before the Education Ministry wakes up?

Parents who moved their children out of Sekolah Kebangsaan should no longer be silent but rather speak up about their frustrations because keeping silent doesn’t help to build our nation.

Malaysia should be for all Malaysians, including its education.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.