Are your children sleeping in a hostel tonight?

The article discusses the recent arrest of two teenagers linked to a hostel death, alongside past tragic incidents, and argues for the phased closure of government school hostels in Malaysia.

It highlights the challenges of state-run hostels, such as increased bullying and inadequate parenting, suggesting that government schools should focus solely on education and operate as day schools.

The columnist advocates for exploring alternatives such as distance learning and community-based education, asserting that children benefit more from familial support than institutional living.

The call for change emphasizes the need for a strategic shift rather than temporary measures like audits.

OCTOBER 1 — Kuala Pilah police arrested two 16-year-olds last week after a 14-year-old junior was found lifeless lying on his hostel bed. The Education Ministry orders an audit .

This is not the first, and unfortunately the column fears, not the last of deaths in government school hostels. How to forget Zara Qairina Mahathir’s tragic death in Sabah in July 2025?

It might be time to change one policy. That our government schools should be day schools only. Which means in stages closing government school hostels.

The government is far more competent in facilitating learning during the day than trying to do that and raise children into adults without parents.

Sticking to core competencies might be best for all, most certainly in the field of public education.

The primary objective of government education is to provide the best possible instruction to all citizens who avail it. Use the funds to serve the most, best.

When the ministry provides housing, it takes on an additional and unnecessary burden which evidence grows, hurts the larger goal.

This differs with universities as the students are adults when they arrive. But in secondary and primary school hostels, they are adolescents. Age 15 and 20 can seem separated by a galaxy.

It’s foolish to assume that school hostels are merely beds and catering. The state replaces the parent effectively.

And parenting is all-consuming and ever-changing.

Parents commonly speak about the complicated challenges of raising children in the 21st century. Imagine the state being asked to care for many children with far reduced resources, definitely in the attention department.

Further, It distracts from the more achievable goals of classroom education and extracts unfairly a chunk of the joint education fund to run hostels. From the five million students in primary and secondary schools nationwide, there are approximately less than 200,000 students in hostels — or one in 25.

Even a poorly run hostel system is expensive. Even each convict costs over RM12,000 in our prisons annually.

The government should get out of the business of running hostels for those yet to be adults. It is ill-equipped to run them as evidence mounts.

Bullying times a gazillion

All schools experience bullying. It’s inevitable. However, when the students live in school, the harms are compounded.

The guy who torments a timid freshman at recess, dines across the hall and bunks with a motley crew in a dorm room next to the scared boy. The permutations are endless on how it ends poorly.

Which is the opposite to realities in a day school, where the culprit and victim go home.

There is physical separation even if limited respite in the Internet Age. At home, there are family members to draw support from or to confide in if it becomes unbearable.

In the hostel model, families are absent and the kids are grouped into little Lord of the Flies kingdoms.

Adolescence is a time of strong emotions and a lack of restraint. Very quickly the law of the jungle descends upon hostel occupants.

The prime minister himself as a hostel student will know first hand about all the things that can go wrong in these institutions.

The no-opt out situation

Defenders of the status quo will claim more good than bad emerge from the hostel experience.

Firstly, fatalities do not mean there are no other misdeeds inside the compound.

Mortality is the extreme and only reflects a larger dysfunction within the grounds.

The actual total number of victims is countless, and they thereafter live with the pain of hostel life throughout the remainder of their lives.

Second, the premier full-board schools, including MRSM seek continuity. That is completely natural but the government should disentangle.

These schools and their main sponsors, if they choose to persist, can become private institutions.

Then admission is the private decision by families and not tied to taxpayers. International schools have full-board but the students are self-selecting and the fees ensure resources are spent to provide comprehensive care and safety for the students.

The old boarding schools can graduate and level with international schools when they are fee paying.

Finally, necessity. There are hostel schools to cater for kids from small and rural communities. In both West and East Malaysia.

Two things. Malaysia is not the only country with this predicament and second, a child grows up more stable with a family rather than away on his own.

Wise to look at Australia, which is considerably larger with a litany of remote communities. There are options.

Consider, long-distance education, community instructors, mobile teachers and now the great boon of AI driven sessions.

All of these are in sync with the shifting education field and ask to balance learning with mental health.

Whether Iban, Orang Asli, Dusun or Bajau children, the inconvenience of learning from one’s own village is a pittance compared to the myriad of mistakes which can occur when a 10-year-old lives 60 kilometres away from mom and dad.

Today, a Starlink account can do the trick.

Our ministry with decades of experience may want to lift itself up to display agility and adeptness in overcoming physical limitations when it comes to education.

After all, the ministry prides itself in two years of Covid-19 where all Malaysians were learning from home most of the time and still sustained the national grade average.

It will also remember five of the seven students from Pos Tohoi in 2015 who died in the jungle from dehydration and hunger after fleeing their school hostel, trying to find a way home. They were between the ages of seven and 11.

Burn down the mission

Currently, Mara Corporation which governs the MRSM campuses thinks it has cracked the code by posting former military and police officers to act as wardens and cites the massive drop in bullying in the pilot programme. It’s quite naïve.

A hostel for adolescents is not purely about control, it is asked to nurture those inside.

Men who used to be in uniform may excel in some respects but may be quite wanting in others.

Do not forget the government releases continued information that the state of mental health among our young is less than desirable. The solution is likely closer to more parenting rather than absent parents.

There is a long queue of issues unanswered but there is enough here for those in the upper management rooms to discuss a different way of doing things.

A structural shift takes longer but has every chance to improve rather than one more audit or report.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

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文章讨论了最近两名与宿舍死亡事件有关的青少年被捕的事件，以及过去发生的悲剧事件，并论证了马来西亚分阶段关闭政府学校宿舍的必要性。

它强调了公立寄宿学校面临的挑战，例如欺凌现象增多和家长管教不足，并建议公立学校应该只专注于教育，并作为走读学校运营。

专栏作家提倡探索远程学习和社区教育等替代方案，并断言儿童从家庭支持中受益更多，而不是从机构生活中受益。

变革的呼声强调需要进行战略转变，而不是采取审计等临时措施。

10月1日——上周，瓜拉庇劳警方逮捕了两名16岁少年，此前一名14岁的高二学生被发现死于宿舍床上。教育部已下令进行调查。

这并非首例，而且不幸的是，专栏作家担心，也不会是最后一例政府学校宿舍发生的死亡事件。我们怎能忘记扎拉·凯里娜·马哈蒂尔于2025年7月在沙巴州的悲惨离世？

或许是时候改变一项政策了，那就是公立学校应该只实行走读制。这意味着要分阶段关闭公立学校的宿舍。

政府更擅长在白天为孩子们提供学习环境，而不是试图在没有父母的情况下把他们培养成成年人。

坚持核心能力或许对所有人都有好处，尤其是在公共教育领域。

政府教育的首要目标是为所有接受教育的公民提供尽可能最好的教育。要把资金用在服务最多、最好的人身上。

当政府提供住房时，它就承担了额外的、不必要的负担，越来越多的证据表明，这损害了更大的目标。

这与大学不同，因为大学学生入学时已经是成年人。但在中小学宿舍里，他们还是青少年。15岁和20岁之间，仿佛隔着一个星系。

认为学校宿舍仅仅是提供床位和餐饮是愚蠢的。实际上，国家取代了家长的角色。

为人父母是一项极其耗费精力且瞬息万变的工作。

父母们经常谈到在21世纪养育子女所面临的复杂挑战。试想一下，如果要求国家在资源大幅减少的情况下照顾众多儿童，尤其是在照护方面，将会面临怎样的困境。

此外，它分散了学生对课堂教育等更易实现的目标的注意力，并且不公平地挪用了教育联合基金中的很大一部分用于宿舍运营。全国五百万中小学生中，大约只有不到二十万学生住在宿舍——也就是每二十五名学生中只有一名住在宿舍。

即使是管理不善的宿舍系统，成本也很高。仅在我们监狱里，每个囚犯每年就要花费超过12000令吉。

政府应该退出运营未成年人宿舍的业务。越来越多的证据表明，政府根本没有能力运营这类宿舍。

霸凌次数高达百万倍

所有学校都会发生校园霸凌，这是不可避免的。然而，当学生住在学校里时，霸凌的危害会更加严重。

那个在课间欺负胆小新生，在走廊对面吃饭，还和一群乌合之众挤在宿舍里，就住在那个胆小男孩隔壁的房间的家伙。这种事最终以悲剧收场的可能性简直无穷无尽。

这与日间学校的现实截然相反，在日间学校里，肇事者和受害者都会回家。

即使在互联网时代，人与人之间的物理距离仍然存在，尽管这种距离能带来有限的喘息之机。在家中，如果感到难以忍受，可以向家人寻求支持或倾诉。

在青年旅舍模式下，没有家庭陪伴，孩子们被分成一个个小小的“蝇王王国”。

青春期是一个情绪强烈、缺乏自制力的时期。很快，丛林法则就会降临到宿舍里的孩子们身上。

总理本人曾是寄宿学生，他会亲身了解这些机构中可能出现的各种问题。

无法选择退出的情况

维护现状的人会声称，青年旅舍的经历带来的益处远大于弊端。

首先，人员伤亡并不意味着院内就没有其他不法行为。

死亡率是极端情况，它仅仅反映了场地内部更大的功能失调。

实际受害者总数不计其数，他们此后余生都将生活在寄宿学校生活的痛苦之中。

其次，包括MRSM在内的一流全寄宿制学校都追求教育的连续性。这完全合情合理，但政府应该放手干预。

这些学校及其主要赞助商如果选择继续办下去，可以成为私立机构。

这样一来，入学就完全由家庭自行决定，与纳税人无关。国际学校提供全寄宿制，但学生是自主选择的，学费也确保了学校将资源用于为学生提供全面的照护和安全保障。

那些实行收费制的传统寄宿学校毕业后，也能与国际学校比肩。

最后，还是出于必要性。马来西亚西部和东部都有寄宿学校，专门为来自偏远乡村社区的孩子们提供住宿。

两点。首先，马来西亚并非唯一面临这种困境的国家；其次，孩子在家庭中成长比独自一人在外更加稳定。

不妨考虑一下澳大利亚，它面积更大，拥有众多偏远社区。那里有很多选择。

想想远程教育、社区教师、移动教师​​，以及现在人工智能驱动课程带来的巨大好处。

所有这些都与不断变化的教育领域相一致，并要求在学习和心理健康之间取得平衡。

无论是伊班族、原住民、杜顺族还是巴瑶族的孩子，在自己的村庄学习所带来的不便与一个 10 岁的孩子住在离父母 60 公里远的地方可能会犯的无数错误相比，简直微不足道。

如今，一个 Starlink 账户就能解决这个问题。

我们这个拥有数十年经验的部门或许想要提升自身实力，在教育方面展现出克服身体限制的灵活性和熟练度。

毕竟，教育部对过去两年新冠疫情期间所有马来西亚人大部分时间都在家学习，但仍然保持了全国平均成绩感到自豪。

它还将缅怀2015年从波斯托霍伊学校逃出宿舍、试图寻找回家之路后，在丛林中因脱水和饥饿而丧生的七名学生中的五名。他们的年龄在七岁到十一岁之间。

烧毁任务

目前，管理MRSM校园的马拉公司认为，通过派遣前军警人员担任校园管理员，他们已经找到了解决问题的办法，并援引试点项目中校园欺凌事件大幅下降的数据作为佐证。这种想法相当天真。

青少年宿舍并非纯粹为了控制，更是为了培养宿舍里的青少年。

曾经穿制服的人可能在某些方面表现出色，但在其他方面可能相当不足。

别忘了，政府持续发布信息，指出青少年心理健康状况堪忧。解决之道或许在于加强父母的管教，而非让父母缺席。

虽然还有很多问题没有得到解答，但这足以让高层管理人员讨论一种不同的做事方式。

结构性转变需要更长时间，但比起再做一次审计或报告，它更有可能带来改进。

* 这是专栏作家的个人观点。

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