What will they think of next?

a.k.a. Policies that widen the gap between the haves and have-nots

This piece of news appeared in my FB page, shared by a friend. I had thought that this could be one of those fake news (so much faith do I have in Malaysian ministers), but when I searched on, this report came out in a few sites:

https://www.therakyatpost.com/2020/09/30/government-plans-to-build-elite-preschools-for-m40-families-with-better-curriculum/

The Rural Development Deputy Minister had made this statement apparently. Why? Only he can explain it. Maybe the Ministry had indeed conducted a thorough research and found a need for an "elite preschool"? Maybe it is just a thought-process that come out prematurely? It could also be a case of him being misquoted (see how much faith I have?).. or maybe he had not thought much about what he wanted to say, before he said them?

When number 3 was younger, I had told her to wait 3 seconds before she opens her mouth.. because she says what's in her mind too quickly.. she would blurt out something and I would gasp "oh no!" quietly.. and everybody else would think that I am a bad parent for teaching the kid to say inappropriate things..

[One example: one of my relatives married an older woman, when we met them she asked their age.. the relative said we're almost the same age.. and she replied "how come she looks older?".. they both laughed the statement off but I suffered internal shock, because we do not discuss age difference or whatever when we have family conversations, and here she goes pointing out that the woman is older... but again, I digress 😿]

I have 5 children. 3 have effectively completed pre-school, primary and secondary school.. and higher education in Malaysia. Our pre-school choices have always been private ones (costing +/- 6000 a year). The first 3 went to SRK i.e. national primary school (funded fully by the government) and the younger 2 are currently in SJKC i.e. chinese-medium primary school (partially funded by the government).

Why did we send the children to private pre-schools? Because there are many to choose from, the syllabus is developmental, and because we don't really trust the KEMAS (government funded) tadika... one friend actually sent her child there (because we had gone to similar pre-schools when we were younger; it is provided by the government & she is a taxpayer) and found that the teaching was so bad that her child was unable to read or do basic maths in Standard 1.. she had to send her son for additional classes when he was in Standard 1, just to catch up with everybody else (I will dive deeper into this later).

My take:

1) Improve current government pre-school syllabus ACROSS the board, not just for the elites. We do not need another reason to widen the class gap, unless it is our intentional message that "the rich gets better things with abundant money at their disposal".. they already get better things full stop, the government should support everybody from low to medium to high income. EQUALLY [I will not go into the economics of this, because the rich tends to opt for private sector schools, universities, hospitals.. because they can]

2) The unequal syllabus between government and private sector preschools must be addressed. The kids from KEMAS otherwise will have to attend remedial reading writing and counting classes due to the botched job done at preschool level. They will miss core classes, get left behind in primary school which is CRUCIAL as foundation to higher levels. The kids feel inadequate, struggle through school and may at one point drop out because it is all too much.. not because they were not clever, but because the government has not done right by them. These may give rise to other social issues like 'rempit' and their lack of education will stop them from earning high(er) income to be able to contribute to the economy (and especially to help themselves!). See how preschool is SO VERY IMPORTANT?