Which Education Ministry Dingbat's Bright Idea Is This?

From The Star:
Children made to feel like foreigners in own country.

I am a foreigner married to a Malaysian and we have two daughters.

As their father is a Malaysian citizen, they were accorded automatic Malaysian citizenship at birth. Why then are they being treated as foreigners?

My second daughter was supposed to register last March for Year 1 in year 2008. When we went to the school we were told that there was a directive from the Education Ministry stating that children whose mothers are foreigners will only be allowed to register in October 2007.

Why this double standard?

My daughter is a Malaysian and as such, she should be accorded the same rights and privileges enjoyed by the rest of the citizens. My eldest daughter is in Year 3.

Her teacher gave her a form for us to fill up. To our great dismay, the form is entitled “Registration For Foreign Students”. I was told by the school it's because I am a foreigner and it was a directive from the ministry.

Why was my daughter, a Malaysian citizen, asked to register as a foreign student? If it is the intention of the ministry to have a database of all Malaysian students with foreign mothers, then they should be correctly registered as such.

From, A FOREIGNER, Puchong.

**** Since when did the Education Ministry decide to usurp the powers of the Immigration Department? I know that our Immigration chaps aren't exactly very cekap, but neither are the inept officers of the Education Department. This is the type of blind bureaucracy that disheartens a lot of people. School Heads don't have the guts to question a stupid directive like this and thereby put an unnecessary strain on parents.

Why does a Malaysian child have to fill up a form for foreign students? It simply doesn't make sense! Which moron gave a directive like that and why? Will the minister or one of his deputies, if they can find time from active politicking, care to explain the rationale behind this curious decision? Or perhaps you readers could enlighten us on the possible reasons for this.