Tuesday December 11, 2012 Important to acquire the many skills in life

IN recent years, we hear and see more and more of our students achieving strings of straight As in UPSR, PMR, SPM and even STPM. Indeed, its an admirable feat and the students, teachers and parents concerned alike must be commended for such remarkable achievements. At the same time, I wonder if this same group of people realise that straight As is not everything. It reminds me of a family friend whose daughter was among these very bright and brilliant students who had scored straight As in UPSR, PMR and SPM. It was at the time when she had just sat for STPM and was waiting for her results that her mother discovered something very shocking. She had asked her daughter to help her out in the kitchen and start with peeling the onions. This brilliant straight As, 18-year-old, holding an onion in her hand, asked her mother: When do I stop peeling the layers? In all her growing years her parents had put so much emphasis on her academic excellence, so much so she had never lifted a finger to help with household chores and was not sure how to peel an onion! In my university days, I came across many students who had spent their growing years buried in books and past year papers and lacked social and living skills. There was one that I need to mention here. This Science faculty student used to be a loner, not able to strike a simple conversation with fellow students. Her mother would travel over 100km every weekend to come to campus just to clean her room, do her laundry and wash and comb her hair as she was not capable of doing these things herself. Yet, she graduated with 1st Class Honours. So, what is the value of the straight As and 1st Class Honours when you cant be independent and self reliant? Where are these students today? Did they make it in life? Did they excel in the workforce? Are they able to carry the knowledge they acquired beyond the examination halls? I truly hope so, for their sake and that of our future.

The point I wish to make is that, educationists, policy makers, school principals, teachers, students and most of all parents, need to ensure that each child grows up with a balance in life. Ensure that apart from aiming for straight As and 1st Class Honours, every child acquires the many skills of life that can neither be taught in classrooms nor tested in exams. Grow up enjoying each stage of life and learn to be part of and contribute effectively in whatever you do to ones family, community, nation and mankind. CONCERNED MALAYSIAN Santiago, Chile