Today, my wife and I went to register our daughter for Primary 1. She (our daughter) is only 5 years old and will only step foot into Primary 1 in the year 2010. Registration for Primary 1 for the year 2010 began last Monday and is supposed to continue till end of this month, I think. We are told that we would get our reply sometime in July 2009 (16 months from now) on whether our daughter gets a place to attend this school whom we have applied for or will she be allocated a place in another school.

The question is : Why 16 Months????

At this age of information technology, it is mind boggling that our Jabatan Pendidikan (Education Department) needs 16 months to process the applications for places in Primary 1. What's the big difficulty in dealing with these couple of thousand applications? Well, yes, I do admit that they will probably have tens of thousands of application in KL alone but 16 months??? Sometime is just not quite right or something tells me that there is inefficiency or incompetency in the department.

In the meantime, parents are kept wondering whether their preferred choice of school for their child is granted. And if not, they will be left with a decision in July (give and take June till August) in which time, they will have little time left to make the necessary appeal/s if they suddenly find their child being granted a place to study in another school.

Perhaps Tony Pua, newly elected MP for PJ Utara might have the answers to this 16 month old question.... I hope he raises this issue in Parliament. He has, afterall, been passionate about the developments in the Malaysian education system. So, Tony, you've been voted in. Get cracking, will ya?