The Education Minister, Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid should declare whether he had a hand in setting the immoral questions in the SPM Moral Education paper and if not, who are the officers responsible for such irresponsible conduct and whether they would be penalized.
SPM students for the Moral Education paper were asked to answer questions based on a notice and a picture. The notice states that civil servants are not allowed to participate in anti-government protests; the picture is of two students speaking to each other.
Student A is putting up a poster promoting an anti-government rally, saying that he would receive RM100 after he finishes putting up the posters. Student B advises Student A against doing so.
The questions:
(a) Why students should not participate in anti-government rallies?
(b) How should schools prevent students from participating in anti-government rallies?
(c) We should support Student B’s stance. Why?
The blatant attempt to brainwash students with politically-loaded questions in the SPM Moral Education paper is most reprehensible and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms, especially as it involved a not-so-subtle attempt to tell lies and demonise protest gatherings as anti-government and anti- national, even suggesting that those who participate in them are not high-minded idealists but “mercenaries”.
In his short stint as Education Minister since the Cabinet reshuffle less than three months ago involving the sudden and immoral sacking of Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Education Minster, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, this is the second scandal in the Education Minister under his purview – the first the tragedy of the seven Orang Asli students of SK Tohoi, Gua Musang who went missing for some 50 days, ending with five dead and two alive.
Even up to now, Mahdzir has not been able to restore the confidence of the Orang Asli people in Gua Musang in the education system as more than 50 per cent of the Orang Asli parents have refused to send their children back to the school because of their safety concerns especially in Kampung Penad, Gawin, Simpor and Rekom
Before the tragedy and fiasco of the seven Orang Asli missing students in Gua Musang could be fully resolved, the Education Ministry is now hit by a second scandal – its ham-fisted attempt to brainwash students through the SPM Moral Education paper as if it wanted to nurture a Malaysian “nation of sheep” in post-2020!
Instead of asking dishonest and politically-slanted questions, SPM Moral Education paper should probably ask whether they agree that the Education Ministry should assume full responsibility for the death of the five Orang Asli students in Gua Musang or even whether they agree with the sacking of Muhyiddin as Education Minister!
As students were not allowed to remove the SPM question paper from the examination hall, I call on Mahdzir to make public the SPM Moral Education paper for the parents and public the judge for themselves whether the questions were appropriate and suitable – like “absurd” question which asked candidates what were the positive effects of queueing up to collect water during a water supply cut.
The demand by the six university student groups – UM Association of New Youth, Gabungan Mahasiswa UKM, UKM Student Unity Front, UTM Chinese Student Council, USM Student Progressive Front, and UUM Student Progressive Front – that the authorities explain and justify the educational abuses in turning the examination process into a propaganda tool must be met.
Why vilify civil society groups as anti-government and anti-national, as well as subtly spreading lies and falsehoods, when moral education should inculcate students with good virtues instead of being ‘brain washing” courses?