On Monday, Dr Maszlee Malik, the education minister of Malaysia, held a special screening of Tamil film, Raatchasi with selected teachers and educators, in hopes to inspire change in their respective schools. Raatchasi follows Geeta Rani (Jyothika), a passionate principal who just transferred to a rural school in Tamil Nadu and is determined to improve the place in a big way despite resistance from fellow faculty members.
After the screening, Maszlee said that there are plenty of educators in Malaysia that are similar to the lead character in the film, Geeta Rani.
‘’We want to give our appreciation to these superheroines. There are many more of these unsung heroes. So, we urge parents or students who know of a great principal, headmasters or teachers to share about them with the Ministry of Education.”
Dr Maszlee Malik also said that Geeta Rani’s dreams and aspirations could be applied to the education landscape here in Malaysia. In a film where Geeta Rani reforms the entire education scene of her school by coming up with a system that would ensure students’ talents — academically or otherwise — are found and honed, one small scene, in particular, seems to have stood out to Maszlee Malik.
‘’Similarly, too, we saw Geeta eating together with her pupils. I also encourage our teachers to do this, what more, we will be starting the free breakfast programme for pupils from next year.”
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Check out his Facebook post below:
In my review of Raatchasi, I wrote:
Raatchasi isn’t about the characters that populate each frame, but about Jyothika looking into the camera and spewing messages to us, the audience. Too bad, good messages don’t automatically translate to good movies… Raatchasi is one of those movies where a character is nothing more than a one-dimensional being created to regurgitate lessons in the most explicit of manners.
Raatchasi is now available on Astro On Demand.
