The Deputy Education Minister, Datuk Dr. Fong Chan Onn said it was most “unfortunate” that there was pandemonium at various post offices in the country yesterday for university application forms, with Taiping and Bukit Mertajam being the worst where the situation from the mad scramble by the crowds went out of control.
It is not enough to dismiss the whole pandemonium as “unfortunate”, as what happened yesterday must be regarded as a national disgrace and disciplinary action must be taken against the education officer who must bear full responsibility for the whole shameful episode so as to instil the culture of accountability in the public service and be a warning to all in the public service that they must be held responsible for any such “pandemoniums” in future.
Otherwise, similar insensitive situations will continue to be repeated in the public service, whether in other departments of the Education Ministry or in other Ministries.
The whole public service must regard it as a shame that hundreds of students, parents and grandparents have to camp overnight at post offices to buy the university application forms, especially at a time when the Prime Minister is talking about the Malaysian civil service is to become the first in the world to qualify for ISO 9000 quality standards!
If the government cannot plan out the distribution of university application forms with efficiency and competence, involving the minimum of inconvenience and hassle to the public, then what type of ISO 9000 quality standards is our civil service aiming at?
What Malaysians have a right to demand from the public service is not an undertaking by the Education Ministry to distribute the university application forms in a more efficient manner next year, but for all government departments and Ministries to learn from the disgraceful pandemonium yesterday to ensure that there would be no recurrence of any such pandemonium in any quarter of the civil service in future.
(21/12/96)