COMMENT | Now that we have a new government serious in implementing change, with an inclusionist policy, I’d like to share my view of what the children of all Malaysians deserve.

We saw, especially in the era of the previous regime, our educational system plagued with themes of racial discrimination, student indiscipline, gangs in schools and the growing numbers of young people more interested in bike-racing past midnight in cities such as Johor Bahru.

Why this malaise in the most important sector of society: education? How do we bring back the joy of learning and the importance of education to the young? Herein lies the need to reconceptualise the way we build our schools in our hope to prepare the younger members of our society to participate in Malaysia’s democratic lives.

Each child has the right to be intelligent. This is a view of education the new regime needs to work on. I begin with talking about what an “ideal school” should look like as we keep afloat in this predatory