27 March 2006

Education for special needs

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Uncategorized .

It’s a pity that despite the stated intentions of our Education Ministry to promote ‘world-class’ education, innovation and progress are not its best-known traits. For instance, homeschoolers in the country have resigned to any headway in discussing the merits of alternative education and seeking for accommodation in the present national system. In fact we have stopped pursuing dialogue. Compulsory education is the 800lb gorilla that is being fed a diet of race and politics, rendering it unresponsive to alternatives that challenge policies. So, how to talk?

Take the issue of facilities for children with special needs. While the government insists that children with special needs should be enrolled in conventional schools, very, very few schools have trained/qualified special needs teachers or facilities to be of any help. Some years ago, one mother I know went from meeting to meetings with the Minister himself seeking permission to enroll her autistic child in an international school, only to be turned down – this in spite of supporting medical reports and the fact that the international school (generally closed to locals by law) had the necessary resources her child needed.

And to this day, parents intending to homeschool have been rejected for no reason but that it’s the law (how some parents resist official decree is another story for another time). Yet, homeschoolers constantly make the headlines, even here in Malaysia. The most recent being Yao-ban Chan (see March 11 post) whose family, by the way, is no longer resident in the country.

Now we have math whiz Adi Putra, the seven-year old kid who fascinated everyone with his 12th grade mathematical ability. His parents dutifully sent him to a conventional school amidst great fanfare and pledges from the Education Ministry who promised support in cash and kind – you know, the usual platitudes. But he’s one sad unhappy kid.

On Friday, papers reported that Adi had been cutting classes because he was bored. To his parents’ consternation, Adi has been threatened with expulsion.

The parents of the seven-year-old boy have received show-cause letters from his school, SK Jalan Matang Buluh in Bagan Serai, warning them that he could be expelled for cutting classes too often.

His mother Serihana Elias, a former teacher, said her son was reluctant to go to school because he was bored with the basic syllabus of reading, writing and counting (mengira) laid down by the Education Ministry.

Adi Putra, who could read newspapers by the age of four, had told his mother that he would prefer studying at a school like Sekolah Islam Antarabangsa in Kuala Lumpur.

What was the school thinking?

Anyway, there’s good news for Adi finally. Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin said yesterday: “The ministry has organised some programmes for him but we are not forcing anyone to do it. If his father wants him to change schools, I have no problems with that. Just send in the application and I will approve it.”

That’s commendable. It’s a concession that’s reluctantly made, apparently, if you read what Perak Education Department director Mohammed Zakaria Mohd Noor had to say (Adi comes from Perak). The department director was reported to have said they would have “preferred Adi Putra to complete his national primary school curriculum so that he could become a well-rounded individual.”

You know what they say about schools dumbing down on real education? It’s true, and it’s happening. Here.

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