It’s not a punishment

I’M concerned about how some parents have reacted to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s mention of inculcating a culture of humility and care for the community by having students clean their school environs, including toilets – these parents said the cleaning should be used as a punishment for naughty students.

This just shows the flaws of Malaysian society: we think negatively about cleaning, that only naughty students should be doing it, just as we think a cleaning job deserves only poor pay and those who do the job are treated as “lesser” in society.