| Politician goes into labour over pregnant teachers From Malaysiakini (Tuesday June 26) Politician goes into labour over pregnant teachers CHIAROSCURO MGG Pillai 12:54pm, Tue: The Barisan Nasional (BN), stuck with its Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project, looks for creative ways to show the people can be regimented. It believes without regimentation, nothing would succeed. It wants everyone to get used to this with it cracking the whip. At least that is what it thinks it can do. So, the straight face with which the outlandish suggestion of the teacher-turned political secretary-turned deputy minister for education is proof that at least in the media, some form of regimentation works. It should take seriously any suggestion, however stupid, from a minister, deputy minister, parliamentary secretary or political secretary. The Prime Minister's political secretary suggested a compulsory course in ‘Mahathir Thought’ in Malaysian universities. As Mao Zedong thoughts galvanised China, he hoped ‘Mahathir Thought’ would make Malaysia so regimented that such rubbish would be gratefully accepted. The Emperor wears no clothes, so that suggestion of his was seriously discussed amidst much private laughter and derision, and quietly dropped. Now, this PM’s former political secretary, Aziz Shamsuddin, comes up with his asininely brilliant and laughable proposal for teachers to give birth only during school holidays to resolve the scandal of a teacher shortage. The government now wants to run the personal lives of teachers as well. Dignified stupidity The government did I say? Yes. When the deputy minister makes a statement like this, one must assume it is official policy. Government policies are always announced offhandedly as Aziz did. Otherwise, his standing as deputy minister is in question. He stands in dignity at his post, so it must have the support of his minister and his prime minister. He has all the answers for it: 65 percent of teachers are women, when they get pregnant, they take two months maternity leave, replacements are hard to find, schoolchildren are left in the lurch. He did not extend this idiotic suggestion further to ask all women teachers to state at the beginning of they year if they intend to be pregnant that year and teachers are told when the stork should come. "We are afraid that a school will face a scenario where too many teachers go on maternity leave at one time or some of them might take maternity leave too often," he says, showing that his years away from teaching has given him a fine vocabulary of gobbledygook and forgot why teaching is in the dumps. This idiotic suggestion is taken up immediately by the National Union of Teaching Profession (NUTP), which believes the ‘teaching profession’ gives teachers a grander presence. It is equally idiotic in its response. Its secretary-general, N Siva Subramaniam, portentously but irrelevantly insists pregnancy is determined by the family and not the Education ministry. Teacher shortage And adds irrelevantly that the Education Department must find the teachers if there are too many pregnancies. More than that, he wants teachers to be given time off to breast feed their babies. The advertisement must always come on. Neither NUTP nor the Education Department, it seems to me, are interested in the plight of teachers, pregnant or otherwise. But Aziz has been out of the newspapers awhile. It is important for a politician, even for one as well connected as he, to be in the newspapers often so that Malaysians would not forget he exists. His yeoman efforts to get the Malaysian hostages released from the Abu Sayaff rebels in Mindanao were so murky he could not get the wide coverage he would have liked. His illness during the Umno divisional elections did not help. His defeat in the Gopeng divisional elections caused Umno to address money politics in typical knee-jerk faction. All those Umno stalwarts who were suspended or dismissed had to be to make sure Aziz Shamsuddin was the Gopeng chief, as he now is. It threw Umno out of gear. Aziz is used to that. He alone survives. But he tempts fate once too often. With the Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, finding it politic to talk to representatives of his nemesis, one of the eventual casualties of a rapprochement between the two is Aziz Shamsuddin. So he fashions himself in the public eye as best he can by talking rubbish. At least, he must ensure Mahathir would not forget him when the talks become serious. Children born in national interest But with stalwarts like Aziz, Umno does not need enemies. He has landed PAS with a perfect political campaign that the BN does not honour the family, that anyone who marries a teacher, even if he is not one, must accept the government's national interest and have children to a national schedule. Marrying a teacher now comes with a codicil of family life subject to a higher agenda. This belief that small families is a government prescription and is believed by those in the urban areas. I met a well-educated, Malay professional during the recent Umno meet, an old friend whom I had not met for years. He bemoaned that he had wanted a dozen children, had only eight from three wives, and at 63, he could not any more. Children by official dicta is the surest way I know to make teaching an endangered profession for women who want to settle down. Teaching is not frustrated by women becoming pregnant; it is more than that. It is the government's policy to reduce teaching to an irrelevant profession that few would venture into it. Like Umno blaming everyone else for its problems, Aziz blames women for the shortage of teachers. But ‘Mahathir Thought’ and children to a national agenda is the surest indication that the government has lost its way. Dr Mahathir has earned himself a reprieve after the Umno meet, but the biggest danger, in the public eye, to his continued survival is the combined efforts of his own team to show how stupid they are. To the arrogance, we must now add stupidity. No thanks to Aziz Shamuddin. |
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