UNDER normal circumstances, it would have been a "To Sir With Love" greeting card for Mohd Fadli Mohamed Salleh for taking our little ones from crayons to computers.
Look at the adorable ones, trying to make sense of takaful insurance so early in their life. What is takaful insurance, anyway? Yes, you guessed it: these aren't normal circumstances, what with Covid-19, floods and an election timing their arrival with clockwork precision with Cikgu Fadli's social media posts on the cracks and crevices of primary school learning and teaching.
No greetings for you, sir, said the Education Department. Here, have this show-cause letter instead.
You may call it the all-hell-breaks-loose moment. Cikgu Fadli — what courage beats in your heart, sir? — decided not to take it lying down. He put the show-cause letter on Facebook for all to see, with the promise to go all the way to the Federal Court should he be sacked or demoted. Did we hear, "Go sir, go?".
What homework this teacher from Gombak has set for the Education Ministry and all those who people it. Nay, Putrajaya. And they are getting really bad grades from Cikgu Fadli and the people who are watching the national drama unfold. Teach Malaysia has a whole new meaning now.
From the caretaker prime minister through the caretaker senior education minister to the director-general of education, they are all ears now. Coming together in perfect harmony.
Cikgu Fadli has a good question: Why now, when he tried to tell it all to them so long ago? There is a lesson here: Listen to the teachers. The heavily laden, they too have their story. And listen to the newspapers, too. After all, it's our mission to speak truth to power.
This very Leader has written about cracks and crevices in the Malaysian education system so many times before. Not to mention, several op-ed pieces by educators of repute in this newspaper. The mishandling of the Cikgu Fadli case is the least of the ministry's problems.
But the bungle sure takes us to the big one, though: a broken education system. The signs have been there for two generations. Administration comes, administration goes, oblivious to all that needs fixing. To fix you must first see. Or at least listen, as Cikgu Fadli was trying to tell.
How is it that people in Putrajaya do not know that primary school pupils are being taught subjects even graduates find hard to understand? Who develops such curriculums? Who approves them? How is it that some of our students get to Form One without being able to read?
Let's not talk about English. They can't even read in the national language. Yet we are on a merry-go-round with exams-on, exams-off mode. Yes, Finland and a few other countries have no national exams, but they have ways to make students read, write and think without them. Do we? Have we studied them? By the way, teachers in Finland are a respected lot. Not like here. In Malaysia, teachers are also-rans.
We have a question for Putrajaya. If teachers are asked to spend hours filling forms, how could they spend days teaching?
Small wonder, they are leaving in droves on early retirement. It is time to listen and see. And do something about it. Cik Fadli may have done us a favour. To sir, with love.