Islamic teaching in rural schools, Bian expresses concern

16 Nov 2011

KUCHING: Sarawak parents are concerned over subtle attempts at imparting Islamic teachings and practices to children in pre-schools in the rural areas, said Baru Bian, Ba’Kelalan state assemblyman.

Debating the 2012 budget, Bian, who is Sarawak PKR chief said: “Many rural areas are predominantly Christian, and there is a very real problem of subtle attempts at imparting Islamic teachings and practices in pre-schools.

“There are reports from parents of school children that their children come home from school and recite the Islamic ways of praying at home.

“From my own constituency of Ba’Kelalan, I have personally received reports of such incidents that happened to children from two families,” he said.

According to news reports, the KEMAS director general Datuk Abdul Puhat Mat Nayan said that beginning 2010, KEMAS established 539 new pre-school classes and will open another 2,000 new ones.

Last year, KEMAS opened 150 kindergartens in the state and for this year, they have set up 300 more to increase the accessibility to early childhood education.

Bian said that the people are concerned that these pre-schools are staffed by teachers from outside the local community and worst if they come from Peninsular Malaysia, the majority of whom are Muslims.

“Added to this concern is the news that KEMAS schools will be taking on the PERMATA syllabus, as announced in Sabah in July this year by National PERMATA programme patron Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor.

“I was informed that one of the subjects in the PERMATA curriculum is Islamic teachings in class.

“Can we be guaranteed that all non-Muslim children be exempted from these classes or lessons?

“What are the steps taken by the state government to ensure that teachers of different faiths do not impart or teach their beliefs to the children of different faiths or beliefs in these Tadika or Pra-Sekolah in the state?” asked Bian.

He said: “I propose that local teachers from the local community be recruited to teach in these Tadika or pra-sekolah to avoid any conflict of religious beliefs.

“Secondly, I propose that allocations should be made to NGOs and religious organisations to start or support their own Tadika or pre-schools to reflect our support of imparting knowledge to all notwithstanding their racial or religious backgrounds,” Bian said.

On the teaching of mother tongue, Bian asked the government that there be an official budget every year allocated for the teaching of languages of all the different races in Sarawak from pre-school to Primary Six level.

“The loss of our people’s mother tongue is a serious threat and the precursor to the loss of our culture and identity. The preservation of our languages must be given priority or our people will slowly lose their unique and distinct cultures.

“With the common incidences of inter-marriage between different races in Sarawak, this request needs immediate implementation, “ said Bian, pointing out that it is viable that funds, which are allocated to KEMAS or Permata, can be used to train teachers to teach their local languages or dialects.

Budget losers

24 Oct 2011

SIBU: Rural students in Sarawak will have to spend RM300 on transportation charges just to claim the RM100 allocated to them under the Budget 2011.

At a Press conference on 23 October, Sarawak teachers’ Union president William Ghani Bina said it was not only inconvenient for the students to go to the town to collect the money but also costly for them to do so.

He said that spending RM300 to get the RM100 would defeat the purpose of giving them the money to buy books.

“It will be more meaningful for the RM100 to be given to the students’ respective schools to buy library books or computers as this will be more useful to them. If a town schools has 2,000 students, the money collected will be big enough for effective long term use,” he added.

William said that RM100 was not much today and it would be better for the government to consider giving the money to the schools to handle. – The Star.

Is this part of the election goodies?

Education funds for rural schools

The RM3.9 billion under the 9MP as recently announced by the Prime Minister in order to provide 24-hour supply of electricity and water to rural schools in Sarawak and RM1 billion for rural students as announced by the Education Minister should help to raise the standard and quality of education in the rural areas.

We all know that there are many disadvantages for rural schools: communication problems, lack of accommodation, poor study environment, poor facilities and equipment, shortage of text books and lack of discipline to name a few.

Adding to the woes of the rural schools is that low-grade teachers and even untrained ones are sent to rural schools. It is not uncommon for some teachers to resign as they cannot adapt themselves to conditions in the rural areas. Communications to schools in Ulu Baram, Ulu Batang Rajang and Ulu Katibas, for example, often take days and even weeks passing through dangerous rapids.

Replacements for such teachers are difficult to get, resulting in many classes without teachers for weeks.

As a result of these problems, the performances of the students in rural schools cannot expect to be better, even if there are bright students. Nor can they compete with students who study in urban schools where there are plenty of good facilities like libraries, laboratories, computers as well as having experienced and specialist teachers.

Thousands of students from rural schools each year cannot further their education and are forced to drop-out because of their poor performances in public examinations. It is not their faults, nor the faults of their parents. But it is more on the faults of the government.

It is interesting to note that the Federal Government especially the Ministry of Education has given top priority to solve these problems that have been plaguing almost all primary and secondary schools in the rural areas of Sarawak and Sabah by providing RM3.9 billion and RM1 billion for rural students.

We agree with the government that urgent steps must be taken now to solve these problems. Failure to do this may see an influx of youths migrating from the countryside to the bright lights of urban centres. Armed with little skills, these youths could pose juvenile problems like the use of ecstasy pills, taking drugs, “lepak” and “bohsia”. Indeed these semi-illiterate youngsters are not only a waste of manpower, but can also become a “time bomb” in our society.