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legal action againts history teacher who hurls insult on indians ?

August 4th, 2008
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Wow…can’t believe Star (online version) printed this. I wonder what will come out in the print edition tomorrow.

If this can be proven, the teacher must be sacked. Nothing less is demanded. For a FEMALE HISTORY teacher, its unforgivable. ISA is also an option to be further explored.

The parents must also initiate legal action. Many lawyers (HINDRAF, Pakatan, and BN) should waiting with glee at this opportunity. I love to see Kavyeas or Murugesan take on this path if the parents and students are interested. Dare or not? A hefty fine is expected. About RM10 million will do. The money can be used to set up fund for the school’s students.

No need for some publicity stunt where teacher apologises and gets off with a slap on the wrist.

I doubt that this is a simple matter blown up or even false information because it happened in class, in front of many students. Judging from the report, it happened more than once.

I also wonder how can a female teacher hit secondary school students. Isn’t such powers only given to discplinary teachers and headmasters?

Is it a case of provocation by students until the teacher erupted? Still, it highly improbable that it can happen on two different days.

The article is by Wani Muthiah and Gladys Tay:

About 500 angry parents and other members of the Indian community
gathered outside a secondary school here on Monday to protest racial
slurs and abuse allegedly uttered by a teacher against Indian students
recently.

The crowd began gathering outside SMK Telok Panglima
Garang’s main entrance near here at noon and dispersed about two hours
later.

The headmaster was on leave, so some teachers accepted on
his behalf copies of police reports made by a Form Four student and a
Form Five student. According to the police reports, the female history
teacher had allegedly called Indian students in a Form Four and a Form
Five class ‘keling pariah’, ‘Negro’, ‘black monkeys’ as well as other
derogatory names.

The teacher had also purportedly said that
‘Indians came from dogs’ and the community members were stupid and
prone to thuggery and thievery.

The police reports also alleged
that the teacher had said that Indians were the ‘children of
prostitutes’ and the community’s youths ‘did not have testicles’ on
July 17 and 22, and had also purportedly beaten up some Indians
students.

The Form Four student also alleged in his report that
the teacher had written the word ‘keling pariah’ on the board and lost
her cool when the Indian students in the class told her that they did
not like being called names.

Coalition of Malaysian Indian NGOs
secretary Gunaraj George, who was among those who handed over the
police reports, said that exposure to such abuse would only breed
hatred and racial polarisation in schools.

“No one in his or her
right frame of mind would have said these things. Given this, the best
option would be for the teacher to be assigned to a desk job and not be
allowed to be near youngsters anymore,” he said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Education Minister Dr Wee Ka Siong said the schoolteacher might be sacked if the allegations proved true.

The
allegations were serious as no one was allowed to insult others,
especially in a school environment, said Dr Wee, who was asked to
comment on the incident when visiting a nine-year-old accident victim
at the Sultanah Aminah Hospital in Johor Baru.

He added that the ministry was awaiting an official report before taking any action.

Housing fund proposal for estate workers

August 4th, 2008
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Human Resources Minister Dr S.Subramaniam proposed yet another fund for estate workers, this time for housing. Earlier, he talked about setting up retirement fund. This new fund is for those who have worked for more than 10 years to help purchase their own homes upon retirement. This is similar to the Felda scheme, where the employer would set aside RM100 monthly for each employee. This can avoid housing problems faced by those retiring. But looking at current increasing house prices, it may need RM200 per month to build a substantial amount.

Let’s see how many plantations will take up this suggestion. Perhaps the government can start the ball rolling by donating RM15 billion, which comes to about RM10,000 for each worker. Hmmm, that sounds like too much. How about RM15 million, which is RM1000 per worker?

Merdeka Center survey shows lowest rating for Prime Minister

August 4th, 2008
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Previous Merdeka Center’s opinion poll results will usually come out in the Star or NST, but this time I did not read about it. This news was covered in Malaysiakini. Not surprising that it was missing in main stream media because it shows that only 42% of the polled people said that approved/satisfied with Prime Minister Badawi. This is even lower than pre-elections times and a huge drop from the 91% popularity he had in 2004. This means more people are unhappy than happy.

 

Few areas were covered in the poll, among them Najib’s suitabilty as next PM, satistifaction with BN and PR government fulfilling election promises, view on economy, and general outlook on the country’s direction.

 

The opinion poll, 2nd Quarter 2008 Peninsular Malaysia Voter Opinion Survey was between 4th and 14th July 2008 to gauge voters’ perceptions of current issues, the state of the economy and leadership. Some extracts from the summary:

The survey reveals a large majority also indicated that they perceived the country was going in the wrong direction – based on only 28% who felt satisfied with the way things are going in the country. This may be in part due to a deepening concern over the state of the economy as a majority (59%), were worried over economic related issues followed by 10% who cited political issues as being most important.

With respect to views on political parties and leaders, in two mutually exclusive questions, the survey found 44% of Peninsular Malaysia voters were satisfied with the Barisan Nasional while 57% report being satisfied with Pakatan Rakyat.

The poll also found 42% of voters reported satisfaction with Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s performance as prime minister.

With respect to Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the survey found that only 11% believed in the allegation of sexual misconduct while 66% agreed that it “was a politically motivated action to disrupt Anwar Ibrahim’s political career”. The survey also found that public confidence towards institutions likely to be involved in handling the matter to be
relatively low with not more than 33% citing confidence.

According to the center, the Peninsular Malaysia wide telephone survey of 1030 randomly selected Malaysian registered voters was carried out between 4th and 14th July 2008, and funded via internally generated resources. Respondents were selected using the random,stratified sampling method and structured along the national electorate profile and specifically proportional to gender, ethnicity, and state of residence.

 

Merdeka Center’s press release (PDF) is available on their website, but for those who are more visually inclined, Malaysiakini provided some nice graphics, but its good to read the full report to get a proper insight. So let’s have a look at them:

 

 

 

pollpmjuly.gif

 

That means total of satisfied (very and somewhat) respondents (7+35) is 42%, total of dissatisfied  (very and somewhat) respondents is (37+17) is 54% and the balance 4% is no response/don’t know category.

 

 

 

 

pollbnpr.gif

 

That means for federal BN, total of satisfied (very and somewhat) respondents (8+36) is 44%, total of dissatisfied (very and somewhat) respondents is (38+16) is 54% and the balance 2% is no response/don’t know category.

For state PR, total of satisfied (very and somewhat) respondents (9+48) is 57%, total of dissatisfied (very and somewhat) respondents is (19+13) is 32% and the balance 11% is no response/don’t know category.

 

 

 

 

polleconomyjuly.gif

 

That means only 24% of respondents have positive things to say about the economy. 1 in 4 Malaysians surveyed by the poll.

 

 

 

pollgeneraljuly.gif

 

 

 

Less than one third of the respondents are happy with the current situation. Those unhappy can be due to actions of both ruling government and the opposition.

Reader should note that the sampling is only 1030 and from Peninsular Malaysia.

Review of Moral Education

August 4th, 2008
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Well, I still remember memorising the 16 values and 60-odd sub-values. Not sure if it has been increased or decreased.

The call to review the subject or the teaching methods has been there for decades. We used to read in the papers (under readers’ letters section) on the uselessness of the subject. One of the stinging jokes use to be that if the Moral teachers themselves sat for the exam, they will be declared as immoral or moral-less! 🙂

We hope this subject is totally abolished and a more useful subject is introduced. Perhaps religious studies or comparative studies of religions. We can’t be teaching academic or technical subjects since the Muslims students will be having their religious classes at that time. So, one can either go for religious or culture based syllabus.

However, answering a student’s questions during the Second Annual Malaysian Student Leaders Summitin KL, Education Minister Hishamuddin said that:

Whether we are going to change it or not is not up to me. It depends on the experts who advise me.

We are not going to get rid of the subject. That’s the problem we are facing as we cannot take everything in a piecemeal manner

What we know is that there will be a review. But what worries me is the experts. Its better to get the other stakeholders – students, parents, and teachers involved as well, instead of leaving it to exclusive few people who may not really understand the whole picture.

Was Parameswara always a Hindu?

August 4th, 2008
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I read about Parameswara being a Muslim in today’s paper (NST I think). It was in the article about treasures of the royalties.

However, I think there’s no definitive proof of his conversion and some even say that it was his son who converted, while others said that Parameswara converted in his elderly age. It is also unclear if Parameswara was a Malay, of mixed-parentage, an Indian or from other race.

Any comments or does it not matter anyway?