‘Useless’ education minister Radzi must go, says Zaid

 

Zaid Ibrahim says students need laptops for home-based teaching and learning now while waiting for school to reopen in September.

PETALING JAYA: Zaid Ibrahim has called on education minister Radzi Jidin to resign, given the current “deplorable” state of education in Malaysia.

The former law minister said no clear direction or decisions had been made in the past two years since Radzi was given charge of the education portfolio.

“I think he is totally useless, he should resign and let someone else do the job,” he told FMT.

Zaid noted that the ministry had yet to come up with a replacement for the now-abolished Standard Six examination and lacked a means to assess Standard Six students.

“What do you do with the students now, how do you benchmark them? The teachers are also asking this question.”

Zaid Ibrahim.

Another issue, said Zaid, was the recent announcement that schools would reopen in stages from Sept 1.

He described the decision as “just a way of saying nothing” by promising to reopen schools in stages but without a proper plan.

“Priority will be given to those sitting for examinations, but other levels are equally important. Why can’t it be open for all students?”

He said the announcement also meant that students must continue with home-based teaching and learning (PdPR) for at least another two months, despite some still lacking access to online classes.

Zaid noted that 12,000 out of 150,000 laptops had been distributed under the Cerdik initiative as of June, with the remaining devices to be handed out in September.

“Why do we need to wait until September, if schools will open in stages by then? Students need laptops for PdPR now,” he said.

One way for all students to resume classes, said Zaid, was for the country’s 500,000 teachers to be vaccinated as soon as possible so classes could “get back to normal”.

He questioned why teachers had not been given priority for the vaccine, especially when Radzi was a senior minister who sat in on National Security Council meetings.

“We have been waiting for an announcement on these policies for a long time. He (Radzi) should stop fumbling and tell us what his plans are for education.

“How is he going to deal with Covid-19, online learning and teachers? How will he get it done?”

On Saturday, the education ministry said 253,366 teachers and administrators (61.30%) and 10,876 support staff (46.33%) had received at least one vaccine dose as of July 16.

Taking the vaccination rate into account, the ministry decided that schools could resume physical classes in stages from September. - FMT