Maintain premier schools

WHEN I was in Ipoh recently, I decided to look around my alma mater, Anderson School.

I had literally grown up in the school, some 50 years ago, spending a great deal of time in the classrooms and on the playing fields. I was fortunate as I not only studied in this school but also taught in it.

I spent a good 40 minutes walking around the school that day. What I saw shocked me.

This was not the school I knew, the school I loved, the school I had spent my most formative years in. This was an eyesore, a school in ruins.

The desks were old, worn out and in disarray. The once-colourful glass panes were mostly broken or had cracks in them. The doors were dirty; some could not be closed because the hinges had been ripped out. The paint on the walls was peeling off. The environment was not at all conducive, either to teaching or learning. The only place that showed any sign of maintenance was the field which had recently been mowed.

Premier schools like SMK Anderson have groomed many of the nation’s top leaders. It is disheartening to see the sad state of disrepair in some of these schools. – Filepic

I asked myself: “If this is the physical condition of the school, what about the non-physical aspects?

And then I asked myself another question: “What went wrong here?”

I did not have the opportunity to talk with the school principal that day as it was a Sunday. It would have been interesting to hear his side of the story. But whatever the reasons, the sad state of affairs is not justifiable.

I was once the organiser of schools for Perak and the deputy chief education officer of Penang. There is no way we would have tolerated that condition in any school, much less a premier school.

This was Anderson School, the school that has, over the years, produced some of the best minds in the country.

During my school days, I had been under several colonial headmasters, the last being Dr. G. E. D. Lewis. I’m certain they would not have tolerated the present shameful condition of the school.

It is a disgrace that we cannot even maintain the excellent institutions left behind by the British.

What worries me is that what I saw in Anderson School that day may not be the exception. How many of the other excellent schools of the past are in similar ruins?

What is the problem then? Is it a lack of resources, apathy, attitude, culture or policy? There is a real need to get to the root of the matter. If this could happen to a premier school, what about rural Malay, Chinese or Tamil schools?

I feel the problem is not a matter of resources but attitude. In our quest for mass education, we have abandoned some of the country’s best schools in the past.

We have been so busy building new smart schools that we have allowed our old smart schools to rot.

The pride that teachers, headmasters and administrators used to have in their work has gone. The truly competent people today are no longer in the education service which has become largely a place for the mediocre.

This has resulted in a general decline in the quality of the education service. The recent death of a teacher in Kedah falling through the termite-eaten floor of a school exemplifies my concern for administrative slack.

Ultimately, smart schools will only succeed if there are smart people in them.

There is a need to create a more compe-titive education service with quality as the only agenda.

While there is a need to improve rural schools and bring them into the mainstream, there is an equal urgency to maintain and improve the premier schools of the past as centres of educational excellence.

The present leadership of the country came largely from these schools. It would be a shame and a mistake to let them wither away.

It is time to do away with our tidak apa culture which emphasises slogans and trimmings rather than substance.

DR. I. LOURDESAMY

Petaling Jaya

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