I am very surprised at the very casual and relaxed attitude showed by the Education Ministry in allowing schoolchildren to bring handphones to school. It looks as though the main criteria for allowing such a phenomena is that our schools are not as safe as they were before. It goes to show that the Education Ministry is admitting to the fact that it has failed in making Malaysian government schools safe for the masses to get an education.

Has the Education Ministry thought about pornography being downloaded through phones that can then be spread around by the irresponsible? Have they taken into account what will happen in co-ed schools were boys and girls are in the adolescent stage of their lives and begin to explore the other? Are we willing to see naughty boys and girls peeping at each other and catching it on video phone to be upload onto the Net for the world to see? Have they thought about voyeurism being practised by these kids? What are we encouraging?

Do we want more teenage rape cases, molest, outrage of modesty of female students and teachers to become common daily affairs? By allowing handphones, we are also clearly making a delineation between the rich and the poor. Those who can't afford will begin to steal and then slowly mature to hardcore thieves once they leave school. The rich kids, no matter what one may say, will tend to show their new gadgets to their poorer friends who might then envy them and try to steal the phone from them. So indirectly, we are encouraging the making of modern-day thieves.

If parents want to know their children's whereabouts, they must call the school or the guardians who have been entrusted to care for them. Are we dissolving the schools of their responsibility to mould socially responsible youths?

The Education Ministry has fumbled again. When we are having schools that do not have basic amenities like electricity and functioning toilets, can we call ourselves developed? Can we be proud that every state in the Malaysia is having a target date set to become a developed state when schools are in such deplorable conditions? We have state leaders who can't even converse in English and the same goes for some teachers.

I miss the missionary schools where students were taught how to be students and good citizens first before anything else. The missionaries and the church clergy taught us about discipline and humbleness in life which are values which have taken many to great heights today. It is a pity that these wonderful people have now become history.

Education has always been a thorny issue in Malaysian politics, a future prime minister is always tested as an education minister before moving up the ranks to become the prime minister. With the present minister and the constant experimenting that takes place using our children as guinea pigs, one wonders what will happen when he becomes the numero uno. We have to educate, not spoil our kids.