Open Letter - Dear MOE, Please Talk to Me

#malaysiamembaca

TDLR:

1. Main reasons that led to this open letter: (i) open invitation to submit proposals; (ii) replying this other open letter on basically giving the MOE a bit of space to figure things out (to which i agree, and disagree).

2. Open letter: i'm not here to criticise for the sake of criticising, i just hope to be given more insight on what's happening - what are the plans? how do we reach them? what is my role?

3. No sugar coating, what i'm actually trying to say: i believe that reformation is going to take time - 10, 20, maybe 50 years; but do we have the vision to develop and implement a blueprint that would last us 50 years?

Two (main) things has led to this open letter:

1. The public has recently been invited to submit their proposals on how the education system can be improved. It's interesting because this would be the second collection of the public's view on this matter - which brings up a few questions: why the need for the second intake? how would they effectively filter through everyone's opinions? how would they select what is appropriate; and how would they implement it? I believe it's a great thing that policy-makers are taking into consideration what the citizens have to say, however, if this is not an open forum, the ministry can also easily say "we have taken what you said into consideration and thus we will be implementing plan A, plan B and plan C - we listened and we have delivered". Are they then accountable to the public with the information that is received, and are they transparent with the knowledge they choose to give? It's like a 007 tuxedo-wearing spy saying "Mission Accomplished" when we don't even know what was in the top-secret-mission-file

Apparently you can buy a full-size burn book for £49.99 GBP @ spectrumcollections.com - also thought a burn book is funnier than a spy file - both contain secrets.

When the reality of the situation could have been much more complicated:

- do we, as the people, really know what are the right plans that needs to be in place? (because we can't see the big picture?)

- what if the minority has better ideas than the majority?

- what if the suggestions were picked based on convenience - "which of these do we currently have the resources and manpower to implement as a quick fix? for the sake of showing the people that we have progress."

Before you hate on me and suggest that "omg Chloe, nothing the MOE does can please you", read what i'm saying: collecting. public. opinion. is. good. (the "but" comes later).

(i'm also sure you can't tell but i have toned down a lot on my angsty teenage tea-spilling, beef-eating drama).

2. This piece was published, evaluating the performance of our education minister, and the take home question is this: can you do better?

My answer: of course i can't, but if that theory applies - i'm not ever allowed to complain about a nasty burger because i can't cook a burger. I can't critique a movie because i don't have the skillsets to be a director.

I agree to err is human (in fact, i "errrrrr..." all the time, especially when i'm trying to think of what to say - okay not funny... noted). That our minister should be given the time to adjust to his position, but...

(also reason #3 is that everyone seems to be submitting open letters so i thought it would be fun too)...

Here comes the "but":

Straight up. I’m passionate about education. The fact that I was in the last class in primary school shaped my identity for a very long time - I’m stupid. This perception of myself haunts me every day, and I try very hard to fight back, reminding myself that doing my Masters now is something that I should be proud of - I’m not that stupid after all (even though i struggle with stats. halp...). 

Students spend a lot of time in school, doing their homework, attending tuition classes; they interact with teachers more often than with their parents. Needless to say, it’s important. It’s very important. 

I am fortunate enough to realise that my grades did not and should not define who I am - and I want students to know that too. 

This post isn’t about me suggesting a tons of plans that the government should implement (but now that they are willing to hear, sure...), because being passionate does not suggest that I am well-informed nor well-equipped to propose anything. I have no confidence, nor the pride, to do that (at this point of life). I’m also not one of those people commenting on Facebook posts, throwing hate at every sentence said (I also acknowledge that the media has been biased in what it chooses to highlight, which is incredibly unfair to you; i am however, not shy with my sarcastic and witty tweets). 

But I’m passionate, which brings me to my point - please talk to me, please let me know what’s going through your mind. 

Just keep swimming:

I agree, 100% that teaching children how to swim should be important. I’m assuming you did your research and gave data as to how many children die to drowning. It’s important, I’m sure. So I agree with your ‘big-picture’ plan, but please let me know - how did this then proceed to a kind suggestion for hotels to open up their pools? 

You’ve already thought about it, why not think further? Why not try to understand - where would students learn to swim (that is safe, accessible and cheap), who should teach them (if more teachers are hired for this specific reason, how much will it cost?), how does this bring about changes to your policies, as far as I understand, you cannot make the CSR projects of an industry - policy. 

So I agree that students should be taught to swim, now please let me know how this would happen.

Black shoe of the family:

(If you didn't notice, it's a pun - black sheep of the family)

When the idea was first suggested, I even told my friends who thought it was stupid - that it’s a great idea! Firstly, I won’t have to spend time washing my shoes every week, just for them to get dirty again. Secondly, teachers won’t call me out and embarrass me and traumatise me just cause my shoes aren’t clean (or not as clean as the others’). It would really help poorer students (which also reminds me, you should watch ‘Home run’ - which is an emotional movie revolved around school shoes), because they don’t feel pressured to have sparkly, Colgate-white shoes every new school year. 

But then, please tell me - how does this happen? Will it actually be implemented? Are students supposed to all buy new black shoes for the coming school term or nah? How would this affect the school-shoe-producing companies e.g. BATA? Should students just have the liberty to wear either white or black shoes, whenever they want? (Don't even get me started on how pairing white socks with black shoes would be a fashion disaster... it's actually quite nice... school uniforms isn't even about fashion let me get back to my points...)

History shall repeat itself:

I don’t have much to say about including 1MDB in our history textbooks - I neither agree nor disagree. I do, however, believe this is a great opportunity to also introduce more space for critical thinking. Rather than just the fact of what the 1MDB scheme was, when it was launched and by who - why was it wrong? Why does it hurt the people when the government is corrupted? What happens to a countries when its people can’t trust the leadership? I've realised the students after my year have been introduced to a new aspect of answering critically for Sejarah but of course they wouldn't be able to answer any questions if no proper guidance was given (you can't just throw kids into the water and expect them to figure out how to swim... right?).

On the other hand, this suggests to me one thing - that it is in fact, not difficult to change the syllabus. It doesn’t take a long time to include or remove facts from our books. A lot of people are saying that “reformation will take time” - I wholeheartedly agree. I think that good plans, good systems and a good syllabus will take a long time to develop and implement successfully. To emphasise, good. But if all your discussions have been fruitful, productive - many thought processes have been engaged, many discussions held, many loopholes discovered - then what is taking time? Tell us, please tell us, what kind of holistic plans are you trying to implement, how long will it take and why would it take so long? If you’re still in the midst of some serious masterminding, let us know. Please let us know.

Oxford, 2019

I aspire to be like you

There is nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong - with wanting value-directed education of high quality, that emphasises and provides the space for autonomy. But likewise, please tell me how these will be executed. 

What are the values that should be taught? How are you insisting on transparency? Who would be given the autonomy to do what? 

I've been to a couple events where the Japanese were given as examples - they hold onto their values very strongly: they are hardworking, uphold integrity, show massive respect. So much so that if they have failed their duties, they take their own lives because they are ashamed of themselves. Are you suggesting that tightly-held values and increased suicide rates would come in a package? If yes, what are you going to do about it?

The removing of exams for Standard 1-3 students was initially a plan to focus and strengthen other skills - reading, writing, counting & reasoning (to which a lot of Malaysians went "woohoo, about time, yassss"). It has also conveniently been turned into a strategy to prioritise emotional growth... to which i ask: did you conduct a pilot test to measure how best to evaluate students before implementing a nation-wide policy? do your teachers agree and know what is happening or what to teach? if UPSR is still happening at the end of Std6, how do students suddenly jump from an exam-free environment for three whole years to routines of memorising page after page?

Sekian,

I have friends who told me to chill, working on such important issues would take time, to which i agree (a 2-hour makeup routine cannot be fit into a 15-minutes session) - i am not naive enough to think that change could be implemented in the coming five years; in fact, i understand the position of the ministry - what if we have a 30-year plan in mind but we lose during the next elections, who would then fulfil what was promised? Which is fair.

That's the problem: are we really thinking 30 years? The current 'priorities' are revolved around issues of today and by the time they are fully implemented, these issues would have been long outdated. Your present solutions would not answer the problems of tomorrow. If you can propose a system that would survive through the times, the people - and not necessarily the party in power - would stay true to it and do itself a favour by sticking to what was planned because we can be confident that it would work, because we would want it to work.

I’m not here to make the lives of policy makers more difficult. In fact, if it wasn’t a subject that concerns me so personally, I honestly wouldn’t even care. If I didn’t believe in the power of the government to bring change and serve its people, I will not be studying Political Psychology right now. I’m not the right person to impose, I’m sure, but I believe in a said democratic country, that as the people - we have the right to know and to make informed decisions, not because we are a bother but because it is our future.

(so don't you dare come tell me "if you're so triggered then you should do something about it" - because i am doing something about it - i'm writing an open letter!)