The new school year reopens on 3 January but on 2nd January the school held its registration and orientation for the Form One students. The PIBG Committee came in full force to provide support to the school management and also explain to parents the issues related to school fees. I took leave so that I can explain the PIBG computer program.
There were more than 300 new Form One students. The briefing went well and the consensus was that the parents had no complaints about having to make the necessary payments (or contributions as the politicians would refer them as). Even my request for the parents to contribute RM50 to support the PIBG's computer program did not receive any negative response.
We thought everything will be fine and we can start collecting the much needed funds. However, today's headlines in the mainstream papers dampened everything again. The Education Minister told a press conference that all school fees are optional and parents are not obliged to pay if they do not wish to do so. According to him all these fees were requested by the PIBGs but if parents do not want to pay it is up to them.
I have been involved in PIBG's activities for many years and I can attest that the school absolutely need the funds to function smoothly. Even with the fees, the school still require financial assistance from the PIBG from time to time. And now the Minister is saying that parents can choose not to contribute. I sure hope he will provide the schools with funds to operate because I've half a mind to organise a campaign to discourage parents from making the contributions. But I know if this happens, it is our children's education that will be affected and the politicians would not give a damn. After all their children are either in the elite schools which receives all the financial support from the government, private schools or overseas.
All the parents that I spoke to on Orientation Day had no qualms about making payments of about RM120.00 per year. After all, most of them pay at least that about a month to send their kids to kindergarten. The only problem is the government is not being honest with them. Why not just say that parents need to pay something for their children's education. However, for those who cannot afford it, the government will take care of them. Why ask schools to collect the money but tell the parents that they have an option not to pay. This makes it difficult for schools to collect the funds and also makes parents wonder whether the school "really" need the money to function.
Actually, the government could easily make education really free. The school reckons, it needs about RM120-150 per student per year to finance activities not currently financed by the government to run the school effectively. So assuming there are about 4-5 million school going children, the government would need about RM600-700 million per year which it can give to the schools without having to ask parents to pay for anything. Given the billions that the government spends on other less critical expenses, making education truly free should not be too difficult.
But they choose to play politics with education and I'm pissed off.
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