I am a bit behind time these days. Time fly by so fast, by the time I get to sit down to read the papers, it was news fom a few days ago. Read in The Star (31 May 2005, page 6) about the intention of the Government to build 12 new residential schools to cope with the high demands as there were only 6,000 places available as opposed to 90,000 applications for Form One slots. For the Form Four intake, only 3,800 places were available from 37,000 applications. Hmmm ... if we take say 10 Form One classes (so Form 1A - 1K - omitting the I) with 40 students per class, then we will have 400 Form One students per school. With 12 new schools, we shall have places for 4,800 students. So, we will now have a total of 6K + 4.8K, giving us 10.8K. Out of the 90K that require placement, we still need to find places for 79.2K, that is 79, 200 students. Hmmmm .... (again ..)
Ok, ok, it is good that new schools are being bulit - residential schools. Three cheers ... hip, hip hooray (3 times), seriously... but we also need a new paradigm in the function of the residential schools. Places are limited, we all know that, that has not changed much, inspite of the new schools. We need to rethink who goes to the Residential Schools. Ponder, ponder ..
Let us go back 10 years ago (say, 1995). What is the academic scenario of a household in a middle-class (so to speak) family. How many computers can you find in the house. How computer savvy were you? How computer savvy were the children then, those in Form 1 and Form 4? How many computers were available in the offices and schools? How intensive was technology used in the schools, any school? THEN, the residential played a significant role in extending a conducive academic environment for the high achieving students.
If you come back to the present time and pose the same questions. What is your scenario now. We have the residential schools, we have the smart schools, with various facility levels, computer labs ( a sticky point with me but I will let it pass for the moment), cybercafes, households with computers and even the Cendol seller has his own website. In my house alone, we have 1 PC and 4 laptops and sometimes ALL will be on and almost all the children and us parents too will be looking at a screen. We only have one streamyx line and I am thinking of going wireless.
The scenario of the middle-class Malaysian is very different now. These include the professionals, academicians, doctors, engineers, lawyers, high rank Government officials, and politicians. Then we have the 'village people' cohort, those from small towns and villages and the cohort from remote schools. At best, only the best from these rural schools get to see 'town' when they are enrolled in the residential schools. Children from the 'comfortable' group of people spend more time on the computer at home PER DAY than they get to spend their time on the computer in school PER TERM. I know the schedule of the smart school time allocation to be on the computer. Is there a point to all these? Of course, what do you think .......
Now, it is no longer necessary to offer residential school placements to the children from the 'comfortable' group, who not only have the funds to go to tuition classes but also have the funds for their children to have credit cards, handphones, iPODs, Digital cameras, PDAs, Game Boys, Play Stations, educational CDs at home, Internet access at home, access to many online site such as e-tutor, the e-didik and even a CAR!! and so on. They can also afford to buy ALL the revision or whatever books their children need to study including the expensive Lord of the Ring and Harry Potter books. These are also the people who go to Umrah and also to places like Bali, Perth and many more exotic locations during the School Holidays. Come on people, you are trying to tell me that the residential school can offer a better environment than the HOME!!
They can remain AT HOME and get better facilities than ANY residential school!! It is also time for the professionals to chip in and sponsor their own children after they themslves were sponsored by the Government to further their studies and be the success that they are now.
As for me, as you may wonder, and even if you don't, I have NEVER applied for any Book Loan for my children. In fact even in my family, non of the siblings applied for scholarship in Secondary Schools, inspite of my father's modest income. We did not, then, have to cheat and put a different salary on the form just to get the money. I can still remember friends parading in their brand new Adidas shoes, Johnson boots and Levi's, and AMCO and Texan jeans when they got their scholarship. I got my first Adidas shoes when I on my way to the UK to do my A Levels.
This is the time to extend the opportunities to the children from the rural areas. Give it all to them. Fill up the residential school with the student with potential and even with half a chance so that they can get something really better, a chance to excell, an experience afforded to so few in the past. Give them the benefit of good infrastructure, good facilities, teachers (not to say the teachers in the rural schools are not good), motivate them. At the end of the day, the government will have MORE educated cohort from the rural areas and this will benefit the country all the more. What say you, people, what say you Ministry? ... aiyaa, tak tau lah ...
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