There is a belief in life that we educate ourselves to succeed as pillars of wealth,
power and respect in society. Failing which, we provide for and at least earn the
respect of our families with professions which are second best. Like teaching. It
has become common belief that those who cant do, teach. And we ask why the
quality of education in our country is as bad as it is.
I believe it should be written into our constitution that the children of all
cabinet ministers, government officials and heads of state be fully educated in
their country of birth alone.
Imagine what that alone would do to the quality of education in Malaysia.
The government makes us believe how important education is by allocating huge
national budgets for schools. The reality is that the corruption of business at the
highest levels of government has led to our hard earned money being stolen from
us under the guise of taxes which then go into the construction of million dollar
shells we call facilities for education: the leftovers pay for teaching and those who
did not quite make it in the private sector.
It is much much harder to hide kickbacks by putting more tax dollars into proper
training and procuring teaching expertise than it is to build multi million dollar
buildings for learning. Facilities dont buy you an education, they merely provide a
place for education to happen. And good teaching only comes with wisely spent
funds in finding, training and keeping the very best, not subsidsing the worst.
Learning is the single most important characteristic of civilization. Some people
say those who cant do, teach. I rather think that who can, teach, and those who
cant, merely do.