An article today by Utusan Borneo today highlighted civil servants going clubbing, and stated that such act will cause the government to experience failure in achieving its transformation plan. I felt they were overly critical towards teachers, and I thought it was unfair.
They said that teachers should not go clubbing, because doing so shows that they are ‘teaching’ kids to enjoy.
Let me point out first that teachers are also humans. They are no angels, and are definitely not robots. Not all teachers are ‘unwise’ and eventually get themselves drunk at pubs/clubs, and go to the extend of skipping their work and classes. Most teachers that I know go to such places just to hang out with friends, or to enjoy music.
I also believe that most teachers going to such places would be seen sitting down on a table while sipping drinks and chatting with friends. Is that wrong now?
The article seems to suggest that teachers going clubbing is immoral, and that the civil service, particularly teachers are well paid and should not ‘enjoy’ as it will disrupt the governments efforts to create a ‘world class’ civil service. It further said that teachers should not be enjoying themselves at pubs, and that there are other means of ‘enjoying’.
I find the idea that teachers shouldn’t go to pubs pathetic, and that the assumption of the writers that seem to say that teachers or civil servants should ‘enjoy’ anywhere else but pubs as discriminative and biased. So pubs are only for none civil servants now?
I personally believe that such mentality will cause the future society to be narrow minded, and if further enhanced, will make the younger generation less united and judgmental. They will be more inclined to judge a person simply by the places he/she goes to, yet not knowing the ‘real’ person behind.
As for the ‘world class’ civil service, let me first point out that Pehin Sri Taib Mahmud once said in a youth dialogue: “There is no such thing as world class“. He further elaborated that ‘world class’ is self defined, so what ‘word class’ is this reporter talking about?
The last paragraph of the article also said that civil servants, particularly teachers are always given top priority when it comes to bonus and pay increase, which makes me wonder, is this article really about going to pubs and the government transformation plan, or is it just a disgruntled reporter who didn’t perform well to get his year end bonus?
P/S: I’ll go straight up to admit that I also go to clubs once a while with those clubs having good music having a special place in my heart. I think that doesn’t make me a bad person.