PUTRAJAYA: In the wake of the Keramat tahfiz fire tragedy, the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry has proposed to the Education Ministry that all problematic school kids should not be expelled from school.
Instead, they should be put in a special rehab class handled by school counsellors.
"We have discussed this in the Cabinet meeting and handed over our proposal to the Education Ministry and they have set up a special task force for it," said minister, Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim.
Rohani met reporters after launching the National Counselling Month at her ministry this afternoon.
Reiterating the importance for school going children to complete their 12 years of basic education, she said Malaysian school authorities should not expel their problem students when professional school counsellors are available to assist them.
"By expelling them from school, these kids become misfits in society. Who is going to help them? Some of the parents that I've met don't even know that their kids are out of school. These problem kids would wear their school uniform everyday and pretend to go to school, deceiving their parents," she explained.
Describing the two teenagers charged for murdering 23 people in the deadly Keramat tahfiz fire recently as "a sad case", Rohani said more needed to be done to help children with disciplinary issues and psychological problems.
"These kids are below 18 and have been expelled from school. I don't think they will be hung for murder because they are underage. But they have committed a serious crime. This raises the issue of whether the schools should have expelled them in the first place? I think this is where the school counsellors should come in and help."
These problem kids, she added, should be given a lot of professional counselling and be segregated from a normal classroom because they need special attention.
On professional counsellors in the country, Rohani said only 7,397 were registered with the Malaysian Board of Counsellors.
She also announced a structured fee system for counsellors effective tomorrow.
For a professional counsellor, the fee ranges from RM80 to a maximum of RM150 per hour.
"We need more professional counsellors to handle the increasing social problems in this country," Rohani said. "Given the 30 million Malaysian population, our current ratio is like one counsellor having to handle 40,000 people."