There is an old Chinese proverb saying that ‘one can look down on the mountains but not the water’. From young our parents told us not to get close to the water especially river or ponds and so on and perhaps that is why most of the Asian are not good swimmers unlike the Americans or Europeans where the parents will throw their young kids into the water so that they could learn how to swim. But as the proverb clearly indicates, water is always dangerous and one should never take it lightly.
It is sad to see 5 very brilliant young men just lost their lives over a routine training for dragon boat competition. The parents especially must have gone through a great trauma. Who could have expected that a routine training can turn out to be such a tragedy? But the school authority should always be alert during such outdoor activities. Remember several pupils were drowned when a suspension bridge collapsed during the 1 Malaysia Camp outing at Kampar last October? These mishaps are of course not intended to but the question is “are we always under estimated the probable risks for outdoor activities”? Are the organizers or the people involved put in sufficient safety measures to prevent the occurrence of accidents?
I pity the parents who lost their children in the bridge collapse and dragon boat incidents. It would take a long time for parents to get over such traumatic incident. As we are mourning for the loss of the victims, it is timely for the Ministry of Education to introduce more stringent guidelines on safety aspects for co-curriculum activities.
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