Black shoes, white shoes
(Sin Chew Daily) – Education minister Maszlee Malik announced all of a sudden last Thursday that all school students will have to wear black shoes from next year. The ruling has since sparked tremendous controversies among the public.
The public generally feel that the decision has been made in a rush without thorough surveys, studies or discussions before finalising the policy. Negative effects may ensue as a consequence.
Having observed the reactions from the public for the first two days, the minister made a slight adjustment to the policy on Saturday. The whole 2019 will now be a year-long grace period, meaning students can choose to wear black or white shoes to school and the all-black policy will only be in force from 2020.
The minister has said his ministry has no intention of causing any additional pressure or losses to the students just because of the black shoe policy, and has decided to adopt a soft landing approach in its implementation.
Prior to this, the minister said he had received proposals and requests from parents before coming up with the decision. However, he did not provide specific numbers and reasons and we have no way to tell how many parents have actually complained and have requested to change to black shoes.
It is generally believed that white shoes get dirty more easily and therefore need to be washed more frequently, thus increasing the workload of busy housewives. Some others are of the opinion that dirt will remain even though it is masked by the color of the black shoes, and infrequent washing will not only accumulate stench but also harmful bacteria.
In addition, the sudden announcement is poised to stir up a major “storm” in the domestic shoe market. Due to insufficient time to prepare for the new policy, shoe traders will have problem clearing their white shoe stock while oversea orders in preparation for the year-end “back to school” promotions will become unsaleable even before they arrive here. The financial losses incurred by traders could sum up to tens of millions of ringgit and in more serious cases, could even force some to wind up their businesses.
Fortunately the minister adjusted the policy in 48 hours’ time after receiving the feedback from the public. The revised policy allows traders to adjust their stock before the policy goes into full implementation in 2020.
This also relieves the financial burden of poor families as their children can still go to school in their old white shoes during the year-long grace period.
Public concerns will be further mitigated if the ministry justifies the decision with acceptable reasons, as the policy will have a direct impact on millions of school students nationwide.
It is reassuring to note that the new education minster is indeed actively pushing for education reform in the country. It is hoped that all future measures will be thoroughly studied by ministry officials before an announcement is made so that they will benefit the rakyat and will not cause them any unnecessary trouble.
