International Education: Taking a Stance
By Dr Stephen Whitehead
Slippery Business
Photo by Argha Saha on Unsplash
By Dr Stephen Whitehead
Q. What is more slippery than palm oil?
A. An angry politician
If you imagined that the central aim of international education was to develop a critical and enquiring mind in children, then you’d be correct — up to a point.
An international school in Kuala Lumpur was recently taken to task for ‘spreading anti-palm oil messages’.
The students’ ‘anti-palm oil propaganda’, actually a Greenpeace produced video shown at assembly, was about deforestation and the unsustainability of palm oil cultivation.
However, a recording of the assembly caught the got media attention and subsequently Ms Kok, the Minister charged with developing the controversial palm oil industry in Malaysia.
To say she was less than pleased with the school leaders is something of an understatement. She was furious and very quickly used the media to make her attack, including a press conference at which she emphasised ‘the importance of palm oil to the economy of Malaysia; “lifting millions of Malaysians in the rural areas from abject poverty”, while also lambasting the school for “promoting hateful thoughts”.
The Education Ministry then weighed in, claiming that the school and its students were fermenting “propaganda activities which are in direct conflict with national policy and can affect the good name of the country” and that it ‘would not allow “indoctrination” that tarnishes the image and name of the country.’ Strong stuff.
By this point the issue had gone global and no doubt the school’s senior management were wishing they’d chosen another topic for the erstwhile assembly.
But were the school leaders wrong to raise the environmental issues surrounding the palm oil industry with their students?
Of course not. The school was correct to do so.
The school is not there to follow any single political party line, and it is quite within its rights, even has a duty, to explore both the positives and the negatives of an industry which is highly controversial and, some say, significantly damaging to the Malaysian environment. In an international school, one which presumably claims to be producing global citizens with the skill to consider and analyse different points of view, no subject should be off-limits.
Does the Malaysian Ministry of Education want its schools to produce cultural dopes or critical thinkers?
But balance is the key issue here and there are two sides to the environmental coin. Growth and prosperity, versus environmental degradation.
No country in the world has resolved this conundrum, but at least we should have school children recognising the issues even if they cannot resolve them. Perhaps one day they will be in a position to do so. If so, we’ll have the teachers to thank, not the politicians.
At the same time, is there an international school Principal out there who’d be willing to take on their national politicians in the name of educational freedom of expression?
Answers not necessary.
Dr Stephen Whitehead (opinions are author’s own)
For those interested, Dr Whitehead’s latest book, Toxic Masculinity, can be found here.
This article originally appeared in EDDi: Educational Digest International.