COMMENT | The Education Ministry will introduce “Pendidikan Karakter” (Character Education”) for the 2027 school curriculum, to create students who are “noble and responsible”.

Is this a knee-jerk reaction by a politician to the recent high-profile incidents in our schools?

For example, the multiple cases of bullying (including Zara Qairina Mahathir in a Sabah religious school), the shocking gang rape case allegedly by several students in Malacca and the fatal stabbing in a school at Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya.

We hope that this latest programme has been well planned over several months. We don’t want this to be just about “melepaskan batuk di tangga” (letting off a cough at the stairs of a kampung house) ie “doing something in a slipshod manner just to be heard or seen to do something”.

Or, as a sarcastic Cantonese person will say, “sikk bao mou yeh jou (eat full nothing to do)”.