USM Edu Community

I read with great amusement an article in a Malay newspaper, written by a man, claiming that the reason for boys not going to university is because their focus is more towards technical and self-employed career. The author then went on blaming the exam-oriented system of our education, which surprisingly, doesn't affect the Chinese boys the way it affects the Malay boys. 

There was one part in the article that says:

Bagi pensyarah Pusat Pengajian Ilmu Kemanusiaan, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Dr. Nazarudin Zainun, sejauh mana penguasaan pelajar wanita di IPT mengancam sosio dan budaya masyarakat seperti yang digembar-gemburkan ketika ini bergantung kepada persepsi orang yang menilai.

Beliau bagaimanapun secara peribadi berpendapat, tidak ada salahnya negara mempunyai lebih ramai kaum wanita yang berpelajaran tinggi kerana fitrahnya, golongan inilah juga yang akan melahirkan dan membesarkan generasi masa depan yang juga berpendidikan.
See the problem? Most men (let me be more specific; Malay men) always think that women are the natural care-giver of a child; releasing the male species of their responsibility of looking after the family, as well as denying the fact that fathers play an important role in developing a child's personality.

Consequences of this, boys never realized that they're being irresponsible. They behave exactly the way their fathers did and for generations, women are the one being taught of the need to care for the family. 

The whole article in that Malay newspaper is completely 'menegakkan benang basah'.

I am a teacher. I know that our education system is in correct path to switch from exam-oriented system to a more flexible assessment system, where creativity, artwork, critical thinking and development of soft-skill is being put under the limelight. 

But guess what our boys do? They refused to be assessed! In my school for example, we made the assessment of Kemahiran Hidup subject comprises of two parts; 60-40, 60 for effort shown, creativity, and critical thinking skill and 40 for theory. This should be in favour of the boys who the author in that Malay article said 'more inclined towards technical and creativity'.

The teacher asked them to look at a safety box, which was purposely made to be 'not very safe', so that the kids think of how to improvise and create a better security system for the box, but the boys said, "Ala...malaslah cikgu...kotor nanti kena habuk kayu!".

See? My experience as a teacher tells me not to quickly believe on the stereotype belief that girls are theory-eater and boys are hands-on practitioner. You bet, my girls are way better than the boys in fixing broken pipes, building their own shoe rack and bookshelves, mending metal pieces into all kinds of devices and of course, they are good at sewing too. Believe it or not, the girls were the one who fixed all the swinging tables in the staff room!

While the girls are trying out and seemed to be successful in men's world, men seems to have failed in their own world, let alone venturing in traditional female's stuff.

The 'it-is-okay-to-be-irresponsible' attitude does not only lies in what I wrote in here. It lies in the article written by the man himself:

Boleh dianggap sebagai ejen sosialisasi masyarakat yang cemerlang, golongan wanita yang berpendidikan tinggi apatah lagi yang memilih untuk menjadi suri rumah sepenuh masa, bakal memberi didikan yang sempurna dan lebih baik kepada anak-anak mereka sesuai dengan taraf pendidikan yang dimiliki.

How could they possibly think that after being a loser in academic as well as non-academic stuff, a bright future of marrying a well-to-do woman who is willing to look after the children for him is still somewhere around the corner? Hey! Open your eyes! Who do you think you are? Even price of petrol has gone up, which part of you that has its value gone up too?

With all due respect, it's true that women excels after being given a chance to develop by the men, but, that does not mean men can slipped their hands off their duty. You claimed to be the leader of the family, so behave like one. 

I don't believe in man not able to learn things theoretically. Japanese man (as mentioned in the Malay article) developed their country with limited contribution from its women. Don't the Japanese boys go to school and read books? How come the Japanese boys can read books and Malay boys can't? After the World War II, the Japanese men translated English books into Japanese language so that their people can learn technology. So, who says man can't work with books?

Of course it's easy to blame me as being sexist for writing this kind of article, but I simply cannot deny things which are obvious, especially when the men keep expressing their worries at the possibility that woman might rule the country. If you're worry, then do something about it. Don't just linger around and feeling worry. A man has to do what he has to do. So do it. You can't be serious at claiming to be life-time leader when you suck at managing yourself. Open your eyes; people are not waiting for you to wake up. 

Come on...please don't try to 'tegakkan benang basah'. You are simply lazy and irresponsible, that's about it. And the women who are willing to lay their eyes on you are basically nothing different than you.-akmal fairuz

 

 

Source : blog.thestar.com.my