When you have Umno-linked political operators running our public varsities

By admin-s On Jan 15, 2015

Teachers can change lives with just the right mix of chalk and challenges but right now at our public varsities, they are just Umno-linked political operators.

K Kabilan, The Ant Daily

It is said that good teachers know how to bring out the best in students. However for that to happen, the teachers must act as educators, not as political operators.

Take our public universities for example. Here, our educators seem to have forgotten that a main characteristic of a student is to question. The educators should allow the students to ask questions.

We are not just talking about questions linked to the subjects being taught in the campuses, but also questions regarding everything – from the policies of the government right up to what the opposition parties can offer in the running of the country.

But what is happening in our ivory towers is that we are trying our best to create non-thinking students, those who will just swallow what is being fed to them, without being able to question anything.

Funny when you consider the Education Ministry wants the Form Three students to acquire higher order thinking skills (HOTS) but when it comes to tertiary level education, our students are expected to become simply passive, with no place for student activism at all.

There is a political agenda in this, no doubt. The Barisan Nasional government, which appoints all the vice-chancellors and top educators in public universities, wants to assume control of all these young voters for their own self-preservation.