PUTRAJAYA: Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today expressed his disappointment over the lack of civic consciousness among Malaysians.
In pointing out the condition of toilets in the country, he said that he felt ashamed by it.
"If you go to countries abroad, the toilets there are very clean because those who use it keep them clean. They have a sense of responsibility and care about their society.
"I'm really embarrassed because each time I go to inspect the toilets here, they are usually dirty and smelly.
"This mirrors the attitude we have. We should be embarrassed about this, but some are of the opinion that nobody will know and this is because they don't have civic consciousness and responsibility," said Dr Mahathir in his speech before launching the National Civic Education programme today.
He also took a swipe at litterbugs and described graffiti on the walls of public buildings as acts by people who lack civic awareness.
"For instance, the grafiti art drawn on the walls of public places, it is not pretty to see. It is only tarnishing the walls of buildings in the city.
"Rubbish thrown everywhere is also a problem. Can you imagine if everyone in Kuala Lumpur throw cigarette butts every where? We will be living on a mountain of cigarette butts soon.
"There are also times when street lamps and lights, public pipes, water and electricity are also stolen by people without civic value.”
Dr Mahathir pointed out that comparatively, Japanese people have more civic consciousness than Malaysians.
He said he had always admired the Japanese culture for their high standards of hygiene, and how children are taught to look after their surroundings from young.
Nonetheless, Dr Mahathir commended Malaysian authorities for relentlessly looking for the 16-year-old Irish teenager, Nora Anne Quoirin, who has been missing for 10 days while vacationing with her family in Negri Sembilan.
"These people (the authorities) have sacrificed celebrating Hari Raya Aidiladha to look for the girl.
"This is definitely an example of high civic awareness. If we all have the same awareness towards the things around us, we all will become good (human) beings," he added.
Dr Mahathir hoped that the integration of civic education into the school curriculum would help mould children into responsible individuals and create a responsible, caring and considerate society.
"We all live in a society, therefore we must have high civic consciousness.
"We cannot depend only on parents to instil and teach children on civic awareness because parents nowadays are busy. We need to incorporate this in the education system.
"I welcome and laud the Education Ministry's move to incorporate civic education in the learning syllabus. I believe that it is not only our children who need to be civic minded, but teachers as well as they will be able to absorb these values.
"By doing this, we hope the country will be further developed, clean and looked up by world communities," he said.
Civic Education was reintroduced and incorporated into Bahasa Melayu, English, Islamic and Moral Education and History since June.