We await answers to Dipang tragedyTHE NATION awaits the results of the investigation into last week’s Kuala Dipang tragedy in which three primary school pupils drowned and many others were put at risk. The incident which took place late at night on Oct 26 must have sent a chill down the spine of most parents of primary school-going children and may even cause them to be uncooperative when they are requested to allow their children to take part in extracurricular activities outside the school ground.
Schools and even the district education offices organise a number of activities for pupils outside the school premises from time to time for recreational, educational and team building purposes. For these activities – like the 1Malaysia camp, for instance – to be successful and serve the purpose for which they are organised as many pupils as possible are encouraged to attend.
It will be most unfortunate for the success of these activities if the Kuala Dipang incident automatically comes to the mind of most parents whenever their children tell them that they are required to take part in an outdoor event organised by the school or the district or even state education offices. Thus, what happened was most unfortunate.
Many questions have been asked by the public and even by some of the more concerned MPs and the special committee investigating the incident will have to answer them. Hopefully, the committee will not be like other similar committees in the past where nothing much happened after a few causes had been identified. Whatever the causes this committee is going to identify the parents of the three pupils and the parents of the other nearly 300 pupils involved in the 1Malaysia camp that fateful Monday night are unlikely to be satisfied.
Many will be blamed no doubt but most important of all some must be punished, even if it is merely to show that the Education Ministry does not tolerate shoddiness especially where the safety of schoolchildren is concerned.
Much has been said about the suspension bridge that the pupils were on when it collapsed throwing them into the fast flowing river below – about its location, about its structure and even about who built it. But so far little attention has been focused on the organisers of the event and the teachers, who at all events involving pupils, are responsible for their safety. It will be most interesting for the committee to find out where all the teachers were when the pupils were crossing the bridge. There are established procedures and guidelines schools and teachers must strictly abide by whenever children are taken out of school on organised trips or outdoor activities. Were they strictly adhered to by the teachers involved in the Kuala Dipang incident?