Gangsterism among students doubles

THE number of students involved in gangsterism in secondary schools recorded last year has nearly doubled since 2005, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said.

The Deputy Prime Minister, who is also Education Minister, said 32 students were involved in gangsterism in 2005, compared to 60 last year, with the figure hitting 81 in 2008.

“Gangsterism in school refers to students who commit offences like extortion, threats and beating people up in an organised manner,” he said in a written reply to Chong Eng (DAP-BukitMertajam).

He said the ministry did not just punish the students, but also provided counselling for them.

Earlier, Muhyiddin said the technical, vocational and skills (Votech) education co-curriculum would be revamped to become competency-based instead of knowledge-based as currently practised. This had to be done to ensure that students were job-specific and achieved a standard that fulfilled the market needs.

In a bid to increase student participation in Voctech education from 10% to 20% by 2015, Muhyiddin proposed more vocational secondary schools be built under the 10th Malaysia Plan, with three such schools already constructed under the Ninth Malaysia Plan.

He said technical secondary schools would be restructured to become vocational secondary schools, while two more for the handicapped would be added to the existing two in Johor and Selangor.

(source:http://thestar.com.my)