I read with grave concern that the Malaysian government is considering absorbing the pre-school system into the education system. Without a doubt, such a move will accelerate the decline of educational standards in Malaysia.

The track record of the Malaysian government in the education sector is simply appalling. Almost no Malaysian thinks highly of our national schools (besides perhaps the education minister). The prevailing consensus among the Malaysian public is that while the Malaysian economy came quite a long way since independence, the education system has done anything but improve.

Indeed most older folks will recall a time when teachers were strict, professional and dedicated, education standards were high and rigorous and our universities were the best in the region.

The BN government has managed to comprehensively and thoroughly destroy all that.

These days, teachers are perceived as more interested in earning money from tuition than providing a good education. Our national curriculum is lax. Not only do our universities languish in international rankings, our own employers refuse to hire the poor quality graduates they produce. Worse still, we lack a national education blueprint and policies seem to be subject to the whims and fancies of the education minister of the day. This resulted in numerous flip-flop policies (e.g. teaching maths and science in English and the PTS) that has cost the taxpayer lots of money but has contributed nothing to the development of students.

In comparison, our pre-school system is flourshing. While I would not say that it is without faults, indeed nothing is perfect, it is a miracle considering the absolute sham that is our national education system. Parents are generally happy, teachers are compensated reasonably and most of all, everyone agrees that kids learn a great deal! In fact, most students in pre-school probably learn more per year (despite shorter hours) than they do in national schools.

Even the education minister admitted that the privately run pre-schools are much better than the national schools at teaching our children English. What I would like to ask him is this: if privately run pre-schools are so much better than the government at educating our kids, why are you trying to ruin it? Have you and your party not done enough harm to the development of the Malaysian youth? Our current system makes everyone happy: the parents are happy to pay to send their kids to school, the school is happy to educate the kids, the teachers are happy to work for the school, the kids are happy to be at school, why must you insist on destroying that?

To make matters worse, if this proposal goes through, it certainly means an expansion of the civil service. It is no secret that the Malaysian civil service is anything but efficient. It is steeped in bureaucracy, cronyism and corruption. This translates to increased cost to the tax payer - to fund something nobody wants.

I think the government's suggestion is a serious threat to our liberties to pursue what we like and give our children an education that they deserve. Not only is the government not content with ruining the minds of primary and secondary school kids, they insist on ruining the minds of pre-schoolers as well.