PASTI Boleh

Assalamualaikum

I am an ordinary father with an ordinary way of life. I am an ordinary father who does not really excel in life but striving to make a better life from what Allah gives me throughout my life. It is such a wonderful give from Allah Who give my wife and me with three wonderful child that no words can describes the love that we have for them. They bring us so much joy, so much happiness in such a tremendous way that is so simple but yet so precious.

I cherishes every minutes that I have with them. To be with them when they are happy, when they are sad, when they are angry and sometimes grumpy. Every second is beautiful. No wonder our Prophet PBUH gives such a special attention to this gift from Allah. For us to care them and mold them to be a human that will do no harm and bring peace to anyone who will be with them. To fear only Allah and to love Allah and Rasul more than other things in the world.

Almost five years has gone since Allah gifts us that beautiful girl that we name 'Ain Zubaidah. The name of the wife of Umar Abdul Aziz, one of the great Khalifah. A lady with the brain and the akhlak that we do hope it will be the same in our child. Bringing her up is such a joy for us and we do love her because of Allah.

Last year is the year where we started to contemplate where to send our first daughter for her first education. It was not an easy decision for us as there are so many option for the early education program. We don't mind about the fee but we do have our own important criteria that is we just want her to have fun going to school as for us she is still too young and yet she can start learning A,B,C and Alif, Ba, and Ta.

We don't want exam, we don't want homework, we don't want long hours of learning and of course we don't want extra classes. We just want the simple and yet beneficial for her. This criteria makes it very difficult as most of the kindergarten now somewhat or rather does not fulfill those criteria above. Most of the kindergarten boasting about multiple programs for the child that they have to convince us but to tell the truth, all the complicated and exhaustive program just makes us running away in horror as to what will happen to our child later. It is as if they are planning to churn a robots as early as 2 years old and for us, we don't want them to suffer that early in their life.

After such a long and -I would say- exhaustive search of suitable 'playgrounds' for her for a year or two, we decide we will send her to ABIM run school in Alor Setar. It almost perfect in the criteria that we want and we would say we will be happy to send her there. 'Unfortunately',we moved out to Sungai Petani and gone with the plan.

Back to the small village, we don't have option. It was either KEMAS, PASTI and state government run TASKA. WE choose PASTI as it is the nearest to the house and the easiest for my father to send and fetch her home after school. I would say that I am not as enthusiastic to send her there. I have no idea what is PASTI is all about. In my mind PASTi is just a kindergarten that is run by a political party, with a typical unfashionable school building, most of it in suraus and in small villages. For me PASTI is for the children of the poor and politically inclined parents who does not want to send them to government run school and the least glamour among all of them that I have surveyed and obviously not in my consideration.

When we decide to send her there, I made a visit to the school. Truthfully, I do feel a bit sad as my child will be send to such a simple and dull school under a surau in this small village. Not the standard that I imagined for my child. To make things short, I myself send my child for the orientation day for parents and children. And it is an eye opener. On that short period of time I realized that I have unfairly underestimate PASTI so much and I was so arrogant to look down on them before.

In there, I saw such an enthusiastic teacher who were paid with such a small token for their effort to teach our child. I saw such an organized learning process that they have and I can't believe my eyes when I noted that they have a standard teaching manual for the whole PASTI in Malaysia. I blamed myself for not finding the truth and base my judgement just on face value.

I was so happy to know that they have an organised learning plan for two years duration that covers everything that I wanted for my child. Arabic, Qiraati, Bahasa, English, Maths, Computer and the best part is my child will not suffer the long hours of learning from morning to evening. it is a short 4hours plus learning with a break for my child and I am very happy with that.

Of course the fee per month was just like a chicken feed for many of us.A mere RM36 that is use for learning process and to pay a token to the teacher. Mind you, the teacher here is only paid around RM500 per month as they are considered as volunteers. I salute them for their sacrifices.

Yes, PASTI is far from perfect physically because they don't have the money BUT for me it is fully loaded spiritually to teach my child to be a better person later. Insya Allah