Youth Crisis Rafizi Urges Parents To Reflect On Themselves Too

---

 


Bashing the Education Ministry and its minister over recent school incidents would not bring about solutions, said Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli.
Stressing that it is an issue that involves society as a whole, the former economy minister urged parents to also reflect on how they raise their children.
“I think by criticising the Education Ministry and its minister alone, while it may feel good to use them as punching bags, it is not the solution.
“Because this issue is a societal issue. Every politician is also a parent. Every teacher is also a parent. So, before we get to the question of how this happened in schools, maybe what’s most appropriate is for every parent to reflect on themselves first.
“Because the question we should be asking is: how much time are we really spending with our children? How much of our own behaviour, attitudes, and missteps actually influence our children without us even realising it?
“How much do we really know about what’s going on with our children? That is a weakness that I think we need to keep working on and improving over time,” Rafizi said in the latest episode of his “Yang Berhenti Menteri” podcast last night.
He was commenting on the recent tragic incidents that occurred at several schools in the country, which saw a female student fatally stabbed while two others became victims of separate gang-rape cases.
The incidents had sparked public outrage on school safety and raised questions over youths’ mental health issues, and saw growing criticism against Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek for purportedly failing to address systemic problems in the country’s education system.
Some had also called on the government to bring back corporal punishment to discipline students at school.
‘Society is more crude today’
Rafizi pointed out that the problem was also contributed to by parents today not being able to spend enough time with their children, mainly due to economic factors, which saw the responsibility to educate children increasingly left to teachers.
“This matter is far more complicated, and at this juncture, while waiting for more information, I always advised myself not to be quick to judge and make assumptions.
“Because this issue is even more complicated than the economy. It is a reflection of ourselves as a society.
“It’s true that our society today is more ‘kasar’ (crude), easy to point fingers and punish others, and believe in something before even checking,” he said.
Adding further, the former PKR deputy president said the problem involves societal culture and needs to be tackled through a holistic approach instead of looking at a single component.
Rafizi also appeared to be uncomfortable with the government’s quick suggestion to ban social media platforms for underage children without enough data to support such action.
“For example, if the government says the response to the incidents is to introduce eKYC (Electronic Know Your Customer) so children below age 13 cannot have access to social media platforms, this brings the message that children became violent because of social media.
“Do we have enough data to support this?” he said.
Rafizi said such a move is also going against today’s reality of a connected world, and attempting to limit the interconnectivity might not work. - Mkini

---