A child shouldn’t be afraid to go to school

 A school earns its reputation when children feel safe enough to learn, speak and ask for help.

From Syerleena Abdul Rashid

I keep thinking about the plans Irene Sofiya Khairool Faisal had made with her friends.

After their examinations, they wanted to spend some time together, celebrate their birthdays, dress up and go out for coffee. They were ordinary teenage plans. The kind young people make without imagining that anything could stop them. Irene was 16. She wanted to become a doctor, like her late mother. On Oct 3, she was found badly injured inside her school hall in Yong Peng. She died before help arrived.

A student has been remanded and the police are investigating the case as murder. The motive has not been established, so we should not speculate or try the case on social media. Still, one fact should trouble every parent in this country – Irene went to school and never came home.

Just days later, Parliament was told that 5,681 bullying cases had been reported in schools between January and August this year. The cases included physical, verbal, non-verbal and cyberbullying. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim himself acknowledged that the real number could be higher because some cases might have gone unreported.

That number bothers me. But what bothers me even more are the children who may not be included in it.

How many kept quiet because they were frightened? How many tried to tell an adult but were dismissed? How many parents were told that it was only a misunderstanding between students? How many schools worry more about their reputation than the child asking for help?

We have been here before.

Last year, Malaysians were shaken by the death of 13-year-old Zara Qairina Mahathir, who was found unconscious near her boarding-school dormitory in Sabah. An inquest into the circumstances of her death has been ongoing, alongside separate proceedings involving allegations of bullying. We must allow those legal processes to establish the truth. Zara deserves facts, not rumours.

We also remember Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain, who was tortured by fellow university students and died from his injuries in 2017. Seven years later, the Court of Appeal convicted six former students of his murder.

These cases are different. We should not pretend that every school incident has the same cause or circumstances. But each of them forces us to ask whether the adults, rules and institutions surrounding our children are doing enough to keep them safe.

The honest answer is that we are still falling short.

I appreciate the prime minister’s willingness to admit that current measures are not enough. The government has increased counselling support, trained wardens, strengthened disciplinary procedures and mental-health screening, and allowed the police greater access to schools. More CCTV cameras are also planned.

These steps matter. But installing cameras cannot be the whole answer. A camera may record what happened. It cannot comfort a frightened child, notice a sudden change in behaviour or ask why a student has stopped eating, talking or attending class.

That requires people who are trained, alert and prepared to act.

Every serious complaint should have a clear deadline for action. The child must first be placed somewhere safe. Evidence must be preserved. Parents must be informed. Counselling and medical support must be available immediately. If a possible crime is involved, the police and child-protection authorities must be notified.

Children also need a way to report abuse outside the immediate school hierarchy. It is extremely difficult for a young person to complain when the alleged bully is a senior student, or when the person who ignored the earlier complaint is someone in authority.

We should also publish anonymised data regularly. How many complaints were received? How many were investigated? How long did schools take to respond? How many were referred to the police? What support was provided to the victims?

This is not about humiliating teachers or treating every school as unsafe. Most teachers work extremely hard and care deeply about their students. It is about ensuring that those who do their jobs properly are supported, while those who conceal complaints or fail to protect children are held accountable.

Parents have responsibilities as well. We must pay attention when our children become unusually quiet, angry or afraid to attend school. We must listen before blaming them or telling them to toughen up. But parents cannot be inside classrooms, corridors and hostels throughout the day. Once a child enters the school gate, the institution assumes a duty of care. That responsibility cannot disappear when something goes wrong.

Bullying is not character-building. Fear is not discipline. Keeping quiet does not protect a school’s good name.

A school earns its reputation when children feel safe enough to learn, speak and ask for help. That is the standard we should insist upon, because no family should have to send a child to school in the morning and spend the evening wondering why that child never came home. - FMT

Syerleena Abdul Rashid is the Bukit Bendera MP.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.