BATU PAHAT: The Education Ministry during Pakatan Harapan’s administration had done more than just introduce the black shoe policy, says Dr Maszlee Malik.

The former education minister said Pakatan had introduced various initiatives to support teachers and improve the education system when they were the government.

“There are those who said that I have also not done much in the 20 months that I was in office. The only thing I did was to introduce the black shoe policy.

“Of course that is what you think if you only listen to Umno. We had carried out all kinds of changes to improve the education system.

“We reduced the burden of teachers, gave them back their integrity and brought them back to the core of their profession to teach students,” he said in his speech during a ceramah at Parit Haji Sidek here on Sunday (Oct 23) night.

He said among the initiatives that were carried out was to bring dropouts back to school.

“Teachers were going door to door to bring dropouts back to school. We opened school doors to everyone, including Malaysian children with no documents.

“Unfortunately, we were betrayed in 2020. Leaving teachers back to the days before Pakatan,” said Maszlee who is also Simpang Renggam MP.

During his stint as education minister in 2018, Maszlee came under fire when he announced that school students were to wear black shoes starting the following year with some calling him the “black shoes minister”.