At least it is a good start for the year, especially as parent to a primary school going children, since the Malaysian government had decided to scrap all school fees this year. Syabas!
It was a pleasant surprise when I need to pay only RM1.50 (just for the Takaful insurance fee, I was told) when I came to register my daughter at her school today!
Just imagine before that if you have four school-going children and you need to pay about RM100 each for school fees, you will be bringing tons of cash, that is if you are rich. For the poor, it is sure a burden for them.
The class teacher said that no school fees are required for this year and any subsequent payment for fees such as school badges, workbooks,name tags or the like, as well as parent-teacher association membership fees, were waived and only be required 'as is when is' basis over the school term.
Being a curious person and a skeptic, I enquired further and found out that the directive from the education ministry was given in the eleventh hour, last week before school opens, which of course arouse more of my curiosity.
Because what I can only think of was that there has been issues raised at the end of the last year with regards to the policy by the government that all school fees were scrapped but not followed through by the schools.
This was a hot issue among parents last year as the government had announced in the 2008 Budget that there would be no more school fees for all national school students. When their children turned up for school, they were told to pay additional fees.
Instead they reasoned that the policy only applies to the scrapping of school public examination fees. Of course such a flip-flop indecisiveness of the authority irked the people to the extend that it becomes a political battleground for some politicians.
And I got a feeling that this waiver of school fees may not be permanent, and probably act as gimmick since the state of Terengganu is in the midst of a by-election where polling is due on Jan 17.
That particular state in the peninsular, is regarded as among the poorest in the country and anything that makes the people happy will be used by current adminstration to win votes.
Another proof that it is not going to last long, is that some urban schools are not enforcing the waiver, still charging about RM150 for registration, although these schools received similar directives last week.
I am not sure of other rural schools as well, I just hope that there is no 'hanky-panky' going round again, where such directives are not followed, and the poor among the rural community have to fork out more money than they should, instead of enjoying the waiver.
With the extra saving, they could otherwise use for other presssing needs during this economic uncertainties.
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