Camels and Schoolbags
There must surely be something wrong with the Ministry of Education. They have this imponderable sadistic grudge to torture the backs of our school-going population. No wonder more students look hunched these days!
Year in and year out, there have been numerous suggestions on how to lighten the school bags. Some have suggested we reduce the subjects to be taught. Subjects like Moral and Civics can be integrated into one while Health Science can be taught as an adjunct to Science. All these suggestions had fallen on deaf ears!
Y.B. Dato’ Hon Choon Kin, the current Deputy Minister of Education has suggested tablet computers be given to all students way back in the year 2000. All books including workbooks will be scanned into the computer or burnt into CDs or stored in flash disks. A local R&D company with the required competence had already pioneered a beta test on two schools and the pupils in the piloted schools were ecstatic about the possibility of using it. The piloted schools have sent their respective reports to the Ministry of Education but nothing has come out of it.
The R&D company has also approached the Ministry with a proposal but as usual politics got in the way. The R&D Company could not get any contract and went under. Today, tablet computers can be built very much cheaply especially with more powerful processors. However, knowing bureaucrats are not risk-takers when it comes to decision making or capable of thinking outside the box, we can best forget about this potential solution. Let us pay for the Dells and the HPs when the time comes and watch the potential foreign reserves move abroad.
So, meanwhile what can we do?
Knowing our bureaucrats; nothing. Don’t even try!
So meantime, steel yourself and continue watching as our schoolchildren are being made into dromedary camels lugging gigantic schoolbags as if they are trying to cross the impassable
Quote of the Day:
Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day. ~Author Unknown
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