I REFER to “Co-ed school it is not” (The Star, Jan 10). Most right-thinking Malaysians will agree with me that there has been a breach of national policy. Why anyone should now wait to find out why the students have been segregated is a no-brainer.

School headmasters/principals have been getting away with nonsensical local practices that contribute nothing to the improvement of teaching and learning in schools.

This reflects badly not only on state and district education authorities, who should be responsible for monitoring and supervising the conduct of schools under their jurisdiction, but it has exposed the flaws in the selection process and in criteria used to appoint people to positions of responsibility in the national education system, especially headmasters/principals who have literally thousands of impressionable minds under their care.

Nothing short of a swift punitive response from the authorities and a clear and emphatic statement from the Education Minister on the limits of the authority of headmasters/principals as regards to their interpretation of national policy will satisfy the Malaysian public.

We have had too many transgressions that have gone unpunished, so the culprits never learned. These transgressions will continue to litter the public education scene until such time all of us say enough is enough to aberrant behaviour of this kind and demand that appropriate action be taken in the interests of education and national unity.

We are well into the 21st century and yet the powers-that-be still insist on having laggards in our midst who still persist on going back in time.

ABDUL HAMID SALLEH,
Birmingham, Britain.

Source: The Star – January 11, 2008