YOURSAY | ‘This is indeed ridiculously unbelievable. The police are still waiting for results…’.

Drug bust: Cops still waiting for Bersatu rep's urine test report

The Wakandan: Don’t give us the bull. Urine test for drug - negative result can be obtained within 24 hours. If the urine test is positive, further test may be done and the result can be obtained within a few days to a week.

What kind of test the police are doing? Too often we get this cover-up, it has become stale. If the people have no confidence in our enforcing authority, it’s because the personnel are giving themselves a bad name.

Questioner: This is indeed ridiculously unbelievable. The police are still waiting for the results from the Chemistry Department, which should be available in a matter of days? They think we're morons born yesterday?

Newday: Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), I have managed drug testing in the workplace. Urine and blood test results are ready inside a 24-hour period.

How long does it take to do the paperwork? Come on, PDRM, you can do better than giving us this response.

Vijay47: It’s 7.20pm now and the comment count on this article is 57, every single one replete with cynicism or from the kinder ones, amusement.

By no stretch of the imagination can anyone hold that the analysis of urine for drug traces will take more than three or four days. Yet here we have a situation where even after 16 days, the police can piously claim that the test results are not available.

To a man, the public will believe that moves are afoot to clear certain personalities of the consequences of having used drugs with mere dismissal from the position they hold. Hence the pussy-footing around with the results.

Protecting someone from the law is bad enough but does the police not realise that the bigger sin is the further damage to the little credibility PDRM somehow still retains?

In the history of the police carrying out drug tests, albeit effectively by the Chemistry Department, has any case taken more than about one week?

Anonymous_5609e49b: What? Really? That means the enforcement under Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is much worse than that under former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak.

At least, under Najib, there were results, albeit wrong ones. Under Mahathir, we have no results. ‘Apa nama… itu Azmin pun tak kenal’ (What’s his name… even Azmin could not be identified).

The task before the new minister for education

Ranjit Singh Malhi: I Lourdesamy, I enjoyed reading your well-written article which encompasses the major challenges faced in transforming Malaysian education.

You are absolutely correct that we need a strong political will to make the necessary changes in our education system. We need to embrace meritocracy and excellence in everything we do.

Dizzer: Thank you, Lourdesamy, for this piece - I’m totally with you on 90% of your comments.

It goes without saying that the Malayanisation and consequent Islamisation of the education system has set us on a downward spiral, but let me question a few shibboleths because I suspect the rose-tinted glasses of hindsight are in operation, especially when it comes to anything about Malaysia's past.

The much-vaunted loss of English proficiency is one such myth. The 1961 census claims 10% of the population of 6.8 million had functional English (far lower than it is today). The same is true of educational attainments.

In 1967, only 52% of students (42% girls) made it to lower secondary (Form 1 and 2), 19% into upper secondary (Form 4 and 5), just 6% into Form 6, and a mere 1% into university.

My point being is that the past varies massively depending on who you are. Malaysians who share an English medium, multiracial, liberal, and secular education are (and always have been) a minority of a minority. Their nostalgia is a yearning for something that never really existed.

Anonymous 770241447347646: Those parents who are concerned for their children's education have opted for vernacular schools. Even Malay parents who have their children in vernacular schools have sung praises of them. They must be doing something right.

The real way to go is having a central stream of education, where children of all races go to. What have to be done is already written in the many suggestions that are in this article. Combined them with the many different ideas given by the many experts in the field of education.

This is not rocket science of knowing what is seriously wrong with our education system. It needs a leader who will seriously act on these recommendations and start correcting and putting these suggestions to work.

The big question is do we have that leader? After the many U-turns in fulfilling Pakatan Harapan promises, there is a fear that all this is wishful thinking. Even promises that do not need two-third votes in Parliament, and can be implemented, are also put on the back burner due to the fear of displeasing certain individuals and race.

Let us keep our fingers crossed and pray that a miracle might take place - the same miracle that took place in May 2018, where the impossible came to be possible.

Quo Vadis: That the education system is broken is repeatedly affirmed in the public domain, no doubt about it at all. The question is what needs to be done.

A cabinet committee comprising top educationists in the country to review the system in depth was apparently set up shortly after the Harapan government came into power.

The committee went around the country, held a number of townhall-style meetings and forums, but nothing more has been heard since.

Did this committee submit its report? What are the recommendations of this report? Can the findings, observations, recommendations be made public? What are the priorities?

What are the critical areas that demand urgent action, given that children who are already in the system and moving along with it, without choice, should not continue to be shortchanged?

Yes, with all due respect to the current political leadership, Rome was not built in one day. It may take years to restore public confidence in our education system but a start has to be made.

Can the powers-that-be cut through the jargon of generalities, and get on with the specifics? The time to husk the coconut is long past.

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