MALAYSIA’S national education system, already low in world competitive rankings, has dropped to a new low with allegations by a teenager of a teacher who made a rape joke in front of students during a class, said DAP’s Lim Kit Siang.

Such an episode showed that the situation with Malaysian education was getting worse, Lim added, following on the heels of other reports that of “period checks” on female students at boarding and Islamic schools.

The case of the male teacher who made jokes about rape allegedly involved him telling male students in class that if they raped someone, it would have to be someone above the age of 18 to avoid statutory rape charges.

“The inappropriate remarks were made while students were discussing sexual harassment during a physical and health education class at her school in the Kuala Selangor district last Friday,” Lim said in a statement, referring to teenager Ain Husniza Saiful Naizam, 17, who tweeted about the incident.

In the report about period spot checks, Lim said the female students were “forced to show their used sanitary pads, perform vaginal swabs with either cotton buds, tissues and even fingers or having a teacher, warden, or school prefect pat them at the groin to feel if they are wearing a sanitary pad”.

“Is this the ‘wonder nation’ that Muhyiddin (Yassin) talked about in 2012,” said Lim, referring to the current prime minister who was education minister at the time.

Muhyiddin had launched the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 in September 2012 for Malaysia to become a “wonder nation”. Among the blueprint’s goals was for the country to jump from the bottom third to top third of 2021 PISA (Programme for International Assessment) tests of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

But Lim, who is Iskandar Puteri MP, said Malaysia’s educational status has been dropping lower and lower in world competitiveness ranking over the years.

“This had been a dismal failure, for instead of leaping into the top third of the PISA tests, Malaysia’s 2018 PISA results had been worse than the 2015 PISA results in all the three subjects of maths, science and reading.

“We are still far from the top third among the 80 PISA participating countries.

“We have also slipped in the world competitiveness ranking from No. 22 in 2019 to No. 27 in 2020. Our ranking in the 2021 world competitiveness report is likely to be even worse.

“What happened to Malaysia’s educational blueprint?” Lim asked. – April 25, 2021.