LETTER | I find it amusing that Education Minister, Maszlee Malik (above) has offered to meet with Malaysiakini’s columnist FA Abdul.

He has even suggested that the meeting be broadcast “live” on Facebook, but I do not think FA Abdul needs that kind of publicity when the spotlight should be on the minister himself.

I would like to turn the table around on Maszlee. If he is unable to accept criticisms and learn from public comments, he has ifailed the test of humility.

I, for one, wanted to write about the cashless payment system in schools, but due to work commitment, I dropped the idea. I think this is the last thing any minister should spend his time on.

My children only get RM2 to RM3 a day. Theft is only a minor problem, and to help them, I teach them to keep the money in a safe place. What’s the problem?

One other reason I did not write is because I have become immune to yet another of Maszlee’s “out of the blue” ideas. Did he not previously suggest that petrol pump stations be allowed to be set up on university ground?

Was he not the one who suggested swimming as an extra-curricular activity for children, yet when a boy, Nicholas Chong Zhen Yi, drowned in a pool in Sabah, he kept very quiet about it?

I wonder how many months of feasibility study had been undertaken before he implemented the black shoes ruling, because several months after the announcement was made, he could not even tell us what colour of socks the children should wear with their black shoes!

If Maszlee has all the time in the world to meet FA Abdul, he should utilise it to meet parent groups to understand the real issues on the ground.

As I understand it, a parent group has sought a meeting with Maszlee since end of last year. Instead of meeting them, Maszlee only assigned Shahrul Aman Saari, his press officer, to meet them.

The ministry is plagued with a number of issues that the one-year-old minister is incapable of solving; therefore, I am inclined to think that he will not be able to revamp our education policy and implement it successfully on the ground level.