Kenapa orang tak sebut Selamat Hari Cikgu?

This is a general teachers day post, a more personal post regarding my favourite teacher is here.

When I was in primary school, one of the things that the pupils had to do each year is a questionnaire about ourselves, the one I most remembered was our ambitions. Pupils had to list three of their ambitions, which mostly are unimaginatively filled with their fathers and/or mothers occupation. What do you expect of children? The working world to them is a mysterious place and most likely to be their idol is their parents. Hence mine would look like this
Cita-cita : 1. GURU    2. GURU   3. GURU
My mother is a housewife, which leaves out that option and I wasn't really ambitious at that age to dream to be astronauts and what-not, so the occupation stays as my ambition.

As I grew up, my view alters and my answer relating to ambitions begin to have a wider variety. However my interest in the teaching profession did not disappear completely, despite the light it have been upon, how teaching is not what it used to be and such. I still find teaching interesting and at one point even considered it as a path, that I asked my teacher's opinion.
"Bukannya nak kate jadi cikgu tak bagus, cuma I think there are other things for you," she said. I asked what would she recommend but she refused to comment further and said it was for me to decide.

I am now studying engineering but I am relatively quite informed about the education in Malaysia, compared to most of my peers. This can be contributed mostly to the fact that my brother is a teacher who is married to a lecturer plus my elder sister-in-law shares the same profession too. This means I am partially exposed to the laments and critics given by these 'insiders' into the education in Malaysia, which to my comprehension, still has quite a large room for improvement. I don't see myself being a teacher and I don't think it is my way of doing it small, so I cooked up in my mind that when I go back to Malaysia I would either be a Minister of Education or Minister of Transport.

....

Okay, stop laughing.
The reason is because I think those (ministry) are the most critical area that need to be taken care of in Malaysia and like the saying, If you don't like it, do it yourself. Hence I'm taking it to my heart and I want to do it myself: revamp the education. Might as well dream big, right? No more listing my three ambitions as teacher, instead aim to be the minister.

However I think it's hardly possible people would go along when I change something so big as the education system, thus they need some convincing to do. The best way to do is open my own school. *laughs out loud*
So let's list the rough plan down.

First of all, the school will be public and no 'filtering' will be applied, which will result to various levels of students, a challenge for the school. The reason is if the school fails even to cater to a wide level of students in a small city, how can it be expected to succeed in our multicultural country?
Secondly, the school's location is of importance, preferably far from city or even better in my model town (my mind is crazy enough to want to design a city of its own. More on that in another post).
Other characteristic are as follows, in no particular order.

• Uniforms : An absolute must. Children find the tiniest thing to tease about each other; small ear, missing front teeth, etc. You name it, and they start to calling name. We don't need economical difference of the parents to add to the problem. At least uniforms are obligatory during primary, debatable for secondary.
• Teachers are teachers: They cannot be clerk, warden or gardener. Paperworks are to be given to a kind-of secretary who caters to around 10(?) teachers and teachers are not to be warden. I don't really understand the rationale behind it anyway. Is it so that student can go and ask the teachers about a math problem, while they are at hostel? Puh--lease... But then some will ask what are left for teachers to do? Well, TEACH! 
• School duration : It should be as short as possible, yet flexible. In my opinion, the long hours student spent cooped up in a class is sometimes not very beneficial. For example some student have the ability to concentrate longer than others, they may want to stay back while a few others go for a rest. The latter however will come for extra time later, whichever suites them better and yield better result. Of course this needs more research to be applied.
• Timetable : Sometimes during school, I wish the subjects wouldn't keep changing every few hours. Regarding this, I suggest some subjects might occupy the whole day, which makes it easier for subjects which requires much preparation like science, to be done. Of course this will also need thorough planning.
• Food : Canteen should have healthy food, and healthy competition. A suggestion is to provide stalls for the locals to sell foods to the kids and make do without tender. They still have to follow strict regulations in providing the food but in this way the school can at least curb the problem of children buying unhealthy food from peddlers outside school compound. Provide the place, so they can be regulated. Another criteria is maybe to use coupon system, which helps reduce petty problems with money carried by children.
• Syllabus : They must be super FUN!

yeah, that's it as I can't find anymore to add to the list. I'll update it later when anything strike my mind. Or you guys have any suggestions?

Selamat Hari Guru.

Why a, people no use that selamat hari cigu?