M Bakri Musa may well be correct in saying that heads must roll (no pun intended!) for the recent spate of violence in Malaysian residential schools, but at least in the case of MCKK, as an old boy of the college myself and parent of a student at the college, I feel there is a more peculiar and disturbing reason than mere staff inefficiency.

I am speaking of a disturbing trend in recent years of certain old boys who directly interfere in school management, sometimes even encouraging students to openly defy the headmaster and teachers of the school.

This is a very serious problem indeed, but a prickly one with high political repercussions.

Since the late 1990s, such old boys have often come to the school in the guise of giving encouragement and training to the students. They often come unannounced and select certain boys to form an 'elite', providing them with presents including pocket money, hi-fi systems and mobile phones, and taking them out at weekends to exotic holiday places like Langkawi and Phuket.

These 'elite' students, comprising school athletes, sportsmen, prefects and the like are made to feel 'special' and often encouraged to preserve school tradition against "outsiders" such as non-alumni teachers and headmasters.

According to some students who are there now with my son, the old boys often sleep over with impunity in the school, or take students out to nearby hotels at the weekend. Such is their influence, that even my own son sulked when I forbade him to join in these 'excursions'.

I am not suggesting that there were any improperness or abusive behaviour (nor am I discounting it), but obviously such conduct are unusual. In other schools, such as STAR or Sekolah Alam Shah, old boys help support students, but do not actually interfere in school management. Schoolchildren, even at the secondary stage, are impressionable, and should not be led astray by the old boys.

I am even more disturbed by the fact that these old boys are active committee members of the Malay College Old Boys Association (MCOBA) and should know better than to thwart the professionals - i.e. the teachers - from doing their job.

At first, when I heard the stories from my sons' peers, I was amazed by the lack of probity by the headmaster and teachers. But it was then pointed out to me that the old boys concerned were powerful individuals with political clout, who are said to be able to transfer teachers to "pendalaman" schools if they voiced out their concerns regarding their behaviour.

To be frank, the Malay College is well past its prime. There is no real place in modern Malaysia for a school dedicated to one particular race. Indeed, for the interest of the nation, it may be better for the Malay College either to be closed, or opened up to other races.

Coming back to the point, I feel that the root of the recent problems lie with these irresponsible old boys. They should leave the teachers be, and let them do the job they are paid to do, to train the students to achieve high academic excellence.

It is important that the education minister, himself an old boy of the Malay College, check this behaviour before the rot continues to create a new generation of ill-disciplined, brainwashed students.