A Long Walk To School...

This is a touching story of six children in Kampung Bongkud, a remote village in Sabah, who have to walk nearly two hours to their school in Menggatal near Kota Kinabalu.
And another two hours to get home.

These six year-olds have to do it for the rest of the year, and the next....

They have no choice really because their village of only 10 houses, is so remote and the terrain so rough that you either reach it by foot, or four-wheel-drive vehicles and motorcycles during the dry season.

At the start of the new school term yesterday, these kids began their day gathering at the edge of their village before 6am to begin their long walk to SK Tombongan -- about 8km down a steep dirt track in the jungle and crossing rivers along the way.

Their school is about 35km from Kota Kinabalu.

Many before them went through the same thing.

Read the NST story HERE, and HERE.

A touching story, indeed. But it shouldn't end there. I remember similar stories that were highlighted in the media over the last 20 years about kids in remote villages having to take that journey everyday to school. They traverse winding paths through hills, jungles, cross rivers and streams....

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine your children -- no, YOU, having to go to work like that???

I know kids are a hardy lot. But, come on! These kids wake up at dawn and take a 2-hour walk through all that. And after school, they make that long trek home.

It exposes them to danger!

Surely, there is another way?

This is the 21st century. And we are supposed to have elected people to care for the welfare of these children....

I'm thinking of a hostel or something like that for these kids.

You see, right now, they don't have a choice. But surely we can give them some...

And on the subject of schools, I was reading a posting -A Message For The Ministry Of Education - by my blogging bro, Syed Akbar Ali (OutSyed The Box).

Actually, he reproduced a comment by one of his readers about how schools are making parents pay for all sorts of unnecessary things.

I'm not sure if all schools do that but I know the school my kids went to, did that.

You stop to wonder what all the payment was for. Then you reassure yourself that perhaps it's a standard practice by all schools. And besides, you can afford to pay, so you don't make a fuss.

But we should make a fuss. The high fees for God-knows-what are unacceptable and smack of daylight robbery.

It inflates the cost of giving your kids an education in PUBLIC schools.

Here's an excerpt from OutSyed The Box:

My son is in f5 and we have to pay up $262.50 for barang wajib. What is barang wajib? Its t shirts, cadar, lencana, sticker, track bottom etc. But these are items that we have already bought last year. If there is wear n tear, we can replace some. We shouldnt be replacing cadar atau lencana. But what the school did is to change the color of these items and force parents to buy.

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Keperluan buku is $68.50 but most books from f4 are still not used. But parents have to pay. Bayaran sumbangan PIBG is $492 and one of the item is motivasi ($50). If motivation is not part of a teacher's job and has to be paid extra by parents, I think M'sian edu is doomed.

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Why we parents are not happy? One, some of the parents have many schooling kids. If f5 one have to spend nearly $1600 on the first day of school, imagine you have 5 kids and some in colleges where they need $500/600 pmth for food and books. Perbelanjaan biasa mcm mana?

Also read his More Education Issues HERE