How do administrators providing public services find special moral courage in particular circumstances, when this quality is the most absent core value in public institutions, especially related to bribery, corruption and plain inefficiency?

I am raising the issue based on the reports about two school principals in Seremban and KL who decided to segregate their students between girls and boys in a public co-ed school. Yet another school, which I heard about on the internet, has “deemed it necessary for all prefects to wear ‘songkoks’ in Johor Baru. Finally, there are schools all over the country that “force their Muslim students to wear the tudung”although this is optional attire and not part of the official uniform. There have been complaints regarding this from Muslims who prefer the optional route, especially in Malaysiakini.

All these responsible school administrators appear to be imposing their private “theological flavour in how the school is administered.” And, the shocking truth is that other officers in the schools complied without a whimper or much noise. Or, at least no one heard about it until it came out in the newspapers. One school even went to the extent of a new building to accommodate some aspects of this self-defined need. Do we know why and how such public administrators become political zealots of a particular religious leaning, often ignoring the Ministry of Education’s public policies on the matter?

How then do such public servants decide to “deploy their personal religious assumptions about potential boy-girl relations or related religious issues and make their public statement about morality?”

Why is it that the same people do not show as much diligence or even abhorrence to “corruption or poor quality teaching, or even their own school’s performance in academics with equal gusto?” What is in their particular worldview which allows them to act “publicly and purposefully” on this “private matter” but ignore other more important curricular and public needs of students who do not study, or do smoke, or lack some other discipline?

I am sure in any school there are teachers and students who are less than exemplary, or need encouragement to support to enhance their performance. How then can we re-orientate such principals and help them focus on their curricular duties instead of policing public morality? Who officially or unofficially “authorises them” to develop their own public morality policy, based on their own private religious convictions. How can this ever happen? Is this another the case of the Little Emperors? Where are the District Education Officers and where are the Parent-Teacher Associations? Where are the school alumni? Where are the other public school principals? Did none of them know? Did none of them see this obvious and wrong political zealotry?

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Fear to speak up
Fear to speak up and act against obvious wrong-doing is often the most debilitating inaction in most public spaces. Let me quote three instances that I have personally experienced. The Boys Brigade is a nationally recognised uniformed body, even recognised by the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Nonetheless, in my son’s school this uniformed activity is not recognised as an approved uniformed activity because of the decision of certain individuals in the school, because it is done outside the school, and outside school hours and organised by the Church.

The second case was when a new Ustaz in my son’s primary school insisted that all Primary 6 prefects wear long pants; not one teacher stood up to ask why or challenged this arbitrary decision. Therefore, when I went in to write a complaint, the non-Malay deputy principal was truly appreciative of my “public protest” as he could use “my parent complaint” to raise and address this issue with the principal regarding the “new policy” which was not discussed by the teachers, but merely implemented by the new Ustaz.

The third instance was when I was on a PIBG committee at my son’s school when we heard that the principal had issued a verbal directive to all non-Muslim clubs and societies to “refrain from undertaking their religious activities within the school compound.” At the next PIBG committee meeting, I enquired of the principal where and why there was such a policy. She replied that it was a directive from the PPD or the Pegawai Pendidikan Daerah. I asked for a copy of the written directive, as I knew the implications of such a directive. The principal confirmed that it was an unwritten one. I advised her against following such “non-policies” and requested for her to rescind the policy before the annual PIGB meeting. She did not and the matter was raised at the next PIBG meeting and was resolved when another senior ex-government servant and a Malay parent argued that it was against the Federal Constitution.

About two weeks later, the minister of education did clarify that no such public policy existed and all schools were free to allow “other religious groups to continue their activities and practice of their faith.” I believe that the current deputy prime minister was the then minister of education. He should know, having been educated in the St John’s Institution; issues of public morality must be based on one’s personal religious convictions and cannot be imposed by the government.

Take disciplinary action

Therefore, how do we help such public servants to recognise that their administrative decisions must be always aligned with the rights and privileges already protected in the Federal Constitution? How do we educate senior government servants that they “cannot and should not become partisan in how they conduct themselves in public service?” How do we train all public officials such that they understand what it means to protect and preserve the original Social Contract and the spirit of the Federal Constitution enshrined in the Rukunegara? Should we do it by “inculcating more religious values?”Or, do we do this by “inculcating more civil and moral values based on universal principles?” Or, do we do this by teaching public servants to simply be politically neutral in implementing government policies?

To me, the only other and more effective was than teaching and training to do what is right, is to take disciplinary action against all arbitrary actions of public servants which are tainted with bigotry. They have to be held personally accountable for their conscious and irresponsible actions. These are far from politically neutral actions but rather the type that undoes all the good intentions of the policy makers in Putrajaya.

The failure to do so is tantamount to closing one eye to such episodes and “tolerating political zealots who sit on very responsible positions to fulfill their personal agenda.” The government needs to recognise that these are not isolated actions but rather work of political zealots who are scheming a backdoor public policy, which does more damage than good to the attractiveness of the national school system.