.png)
I nearly spat out my teh tarik reading this.
Apparently, under the latest “character-building” push by PM Anwar Ibrahim, our children are now expected to clean school toilets.
Not just their mess. Not just their class toilet.
No, no.
The communal masterpiece. The shared battlefield. The place where 300 students go to… express themselves.
Of course. Naturally. Obviously.
On paper, it sounds almost poetic. In reality, it smells a little different.
The memory of a school toilet
Anyone who has gone through the Malaysian school system knows that school toilets are not just facilities. They are experiences.
You don’t casually walk in - you prepare yourself.
There’s a moment at the door where you hesitate, you inhale, you pray, you question your life choices, and calculate how badly you really need to be there.
And now we’ve decided that this very space - the one most students avoid unless absolutely necessary - is where discipline will be taught. Where character is built.
Not in classrooms. Not on the field.
But in the most dreaded corner of the school compound.
Sigh.
Look, I’m not against discipline. Make them sweep classrooms. Make them arrange books. Make them run laps. Get them involved in community work.
Even cleaning one’s own toilet at home makes sense. You made the mess, you clean it. That's responsibility.
But school toilets?
You mean the same toilets where someone forgot what flushing is, where they missed the bowl like it was a sport, or where they declared war on hygiene?
And we’re sending our children in with a brush and a dream?
Come on lah.
The school toilets are used by hundreds of students daily, each bringing with them varying levels of hygiene, awareness, and, frankly, consideration for others.
Asking a student to clean such a space is no longer about learning responsibility. It becomes something else entirely - managing the consequences of a system that isn’t working as it should.
The equality argument
Supporters of the idea say this teaches equality. That students should learn to respect all forms of work, including cleaning.
Lovely.
So by that logic, should students also repair broken pipes? Fix electrical wiring? Take turns frying noodles in the canteen?
Equality is beautiful. But let’s not confuse it with outsourcing labour.
Respect for work is important. But respect is taught through understanding, exposure, and example, not by assigning tasks that feel less like education and more like obligation.
If the goal is empathy, there are better ways to teach it than placing students in environments that may be unhygienic or unsafe.
The real issue nobody wants to talk about
Here’s the uncomfortable truth.
School toilets are not dirty because students don’t clean them.
They are dirty because maintenance is inconsistent, funding is slow, repairs take forever, responsibility is passed around until it disappears.
So instead of fixing the system, we fix the children.
Classic.
In other words, the problem is not a lack of student discipline.
It is a matter of infrastructure and management.
When those systems fall short, shifting responsibility to students may appear practical, even symbolic. But it does nothing to address the root of the issue.
It simply normalises the idea that when systems fail, children will fill the gap.
What if a child drinks less water all day just to avoid the toilet, and comes home dehydrated?
Are we still calling this discipline?
Because at that point, we’re not teaching responsibility.
We’re teaching survival.
There is a difference between teaching students to take ownership of their environment and asking them to compensate for systemic shortcomings.
Honestly, I am very glad this didn’t happen when I was schooling.
And even more relieved it didn’t happen when my kids were schooling.
Because discipline should build character… not test your immune system.
If cleaning toilets is such a powerful lesson in dignity and responsibility, start with the adults. Let’s have our MPs clean the toilets in Parliament.
Fa Abdul (fa.abdul.penang@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.