Four days had past and amidst the joy of knowing there were such programs like Karnival Pendidikan Luar Sekolah Menengah Peringkat Kebangsaan exist to develop leadership qualities and personal development, there was a “black mark” in the run up to the 2008 version held in Labuan recently.
The annual Karnival was meant to achieve its objective through various activities such as kayaking, cycling, orienteering, climbing and cultural night. This program is where students which formed crème of the crop from all over Malaysia were selected to attend.
This group of students would possibly have the potential to serve as future leaders of Malaysia due to their excellent academic and co-curriculum activities in school and/or State level. Parents and teachers alike, plays an important in moulding the future generation of Malaysia which requires patience, responsibility, integrity and building the trust with the students. The repercussion from lack of discipline and efforts to guide could proof detrimental in the student’s development.
It came to my knowledge that the Principal of a prestigious school in Melaka, behaved and acted like a “Little Napoleon” taking decisions into his own hands besides challenging the decision of higher authorities in the Ministry of Education (MOE) in the student selection for this event.
It is no wonder that the school which used to produced leaders of this country here had declined so much that other schools including “traditional rivals” St Francis Institution (SFI) and St David’s High School had very much claimed to be on par today.
The student selected from this school was only given the go-ahead from the Principal at the eleventh hour to prepare and make the trip to KLIA for the onward flight to Labuan without the parents being informed.
(a) How does the Principal expect to be respected by parents, students, fellow peers and most importantly lead the school to greater heights?
(b) With such a last minute clearance, it is expected that the student may not even be able to bid farewell to his parents and/or loved ones. Is this culture that the principal wish to breed?
(c) I was informed that in a rush, the student had left his NRIC at home which forces the father to make a 1.5 hours dash to KLIA to deliver. What if something had happened during this rush?
(d) Most importantly, had the student missed this opportunity, the whole school including parents should feel that they had been robbed of having a representative at this national level event.
I guess the most startling information I received was that, there were supposedly 3 candidates representing all major races from this school proposed for the event but only this Chinese student was selected to represent the school. Why had the Principal earnestly wanted to swap with another candidate representing the majority race in Malaysia? What does he wants? A racist or united Malaysia?
Considering this particular student’s achievement academically (straight A’s in PMR) and co-curriculum activities, there is no reason for the Principal to shy away from giving the go-ahead in advance where it meets the objective of a representation of multi racial.
The fact here is, the Principal had just dug his own grave and bury whatever respect the student have upon him. Though this may be the first and if no drastic action is taken, this could be the first of many more to come.
Further probing which I had also found out that the Principal have a weak command of English Language besides I was made to understand that he was previously in the Invigilation Department of the Education Ministry before his present position. This is shocking!
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