Kampua Talk

The other day, Zewt sent me a link and asked me if such thing happens in my university. I was shocked after reading the article. I technically thanked heaven that it does not happen here, yet. Here is the follow-up on the incident. Please do read them as the articles reflect on what this country will be like when the young generation is treated such way since young. Like the wise Zewt said, “Melentur buluh biarlah dari rebungnya.” Don’t worry, Jeff Ooi and Zewt did not pay me to mention them here. LOL!

The whole thing actually gave me some inspiration to blog. All this incidents in UPM reminds me of a couple of things. First of all, the role of educator. I am not an educator nor am I dreaming of being one. What is the role of an educator? Teachers and lecturers alike fall into this category. Since primary education, we were being taught “Guru ibarat lilin yang membakar dirinya untuk menerangi hidup orang lain” but now I am witnessing the saying dying a natural death. The saying, only applied to educator in the past, is now buried in the dust like history textbooks.

A teacher is a very much respected figure back then. He/She showed professionalism when carrying out his/her duty. Nowadays, cases of teachers being late to enter a class, do not know their subject, discriminating the students, etc are very common in primary, secondary and tertiary education.

I have cousins my age, dropping out of school with the highest education level in SPM (Form Five) and have been job-hopping ever since. One of them joined the wrong crowd in secondary school, but the factor of peer pressure would be a topic for another post. He was not a bright student to begin with. Being lower than average, he was put into a class together with those ’stupid’ students. They are so used to being called names - stupid, lazy, pig, useless, no brain, no future, failure, loser, etc that they have grown to hate teachers ever since. Now could you blame them for not paying attention in class when the teacher is teaching them half-heartedly? Who is to be blamed that these students hate school? Who is to be blamed that these student skip school? My cousin once told me that they even played games in the class, burnt some firecrackers in the toilet, didn’t even bring books to school, etc and their teacher did not even care!

Another cousin is doing better, he finished Lower Six. His reason was that Form Six was too hard, he couldn’t cope with the rest of the class. Besides, the teacher did not want to slow down for weaker students. I couldn’t blame him, though. I was in Upper Six at that time, same school, same teacher teaching same subjects. Those teachers were well-known for their strict-ness, they did not like being interrupted during lessons. With that being said, how do you expect the students to learn when they are forbidden to ask questions during lessons? After class? Oh, teachers always left before the bell rang indicating time to go home. Now who is to be blamed that my cousin dropped school altogether after that year?

Another case was the one closer to home. This happened to my very own younger brother. The posts are somewhere in the blog, which I am too lazy to dig. Being disabled (minor Cerebral Palsy), he was mocked, looked down and humiliated by his teachers ever since he entered Primary One. Some teachers even had the balls to tell him that he will not succeed in the future. Fortunately, he has family and friends support all the way. I wonder how many handicapped students out there being looked down and humiliated in school especially by the teachers? How many of them has the support from family and friends? And how many dropped out of school due to the humiliation? Some teachers just do not understand the sensitivity of their words towards these disabled people. They should be sent to psychology school before being eligible to teach!

Both of my cousins have been job-hopping since they dropped out of school that I lost track on their latest situation. Second of all, the role of education institution. If you actually read the vision and mission as well as the objectives of a university (which I obviously did not), they are all the same for universities around the country - help mold future leaders, educate the youth, bla bla bla yadda yadda. But incidents like those I mentioned in the first paragraph (mentioned in Jeff Ooi’s Screenshots) are happening so often every now and then that I saw a totally new meaning of “help mold future leaders” and “educate the youth”.

In universities, especially the university that I am studying in, there are obvious cases of ‘close one eye’ and discrimination, just to mention a couple. The security here will go around fining cars without university sticker (meaning we cannot drive our car here, we must apply for a sticker which are not likely to be given to us free) with hefty fines and close-one-eye to the cases of university staff and lecturers doing business of renting cars to students which is illegal, according to university rules. What is this? Well, there are many more cases of similar severity which are not worth mentioning here because nothing has been done about them.

Apart from all that, not to mention the political elements that are influencing the way things are done here as well as the vote of students during campus elections. The voting procedures are for publicities, we already know who and who is going to sit for a certain post because we are forced to vote for a certain candidate. That was why I purposely spoil my vote all the time.

What will happen to the next generation? What is the future of education in this country?