Recently, Minister in the Premier’s Department (Native Laws and Customs) John Sikie Tayai has announced that any new appointment of community leaders and village headmen such as tuai rumah, penghulu and pemanca will be based strictly on academic qualifications and administrative capabilities to ensure more structured and effective village management.
The minimum requirement is that they must possess a Form 5 certificate, starting this year.
This is a most welcome announcement in the efforts to upgrade the standard of service of the community leaders and headmen.
The previous requirements did not set a minimum standard of qualification, but more on their loyalty to the serving state legislative member (SLM) of a particular constituency. This practice is very common, especially in the rural constituencies.
I believe almost, if not all, SLMs are aware of the shortcomings of the community leaders and headmen - lack of strong formal education.
In the old days, when Sarawak was a crown colony or in the early days of Malaysia, many community leaders did not have formal education. Their only asset was that they had great influence to their communities and government then.
It is safe to assume that due to their lack of formal education, they did not have records of their service or what they did during their tenure of office.
Community leaders and headmen did not keep records, for example, in settling disputes over native land matters. We can assume that they passed the judgment orally, but no written judgments were provided.
Their judgments on settling land disputes could be very important sources of laws, if they had written their judgments.
I can recall of our dispute against another family over a piece of native land in Ulu Simunjan in the 1990s
After a lengthy hearing at the Penghulu’s Court, the presiding penghulu just declared “alah kita” and off he went. We were lost for words at such a simplistic judgment. It was clearly a miscarriage of justice.
The presiding penghulu gave his verdict without any ground for his judgment. We appealed to the District Native’s Court which ordered a re-trial and we won.
That is why Sikie’s announcement is very important in the administration of the system of community leaders and headmen as Sarawak moves toward a more complicated and modern era.
If I may suggest, the community leaders and headmen must also be computer-literate.
According to Sikie, setting the minimum requirement of having a Form Five certificate for new appointments is a step in line with current needs and challenges.
He reasoned that leaders who have a good educational foundation are more capable of managing documentation, preparing reports and communicating officially with government agencies and related parties.
This is what I am saying. We,especially, the Dayak communities, need community leaders and headmen with acceptable standard of educational qualifications.
It is interesting to see if Sikie’s announcement will actually be complied with, considering that he does not spell out who should select and make the recommendations to the district offices or resident’s office, with the final approval by the state cabinet.
In a dispute between SUPP and PDP, it is clear that the recommendations are made by a political party.
In such a case, the appointments are more like looking after the interests of any particular party, and not the people’s welfare.
Whatever it is,the appointments for community leaders and headmen are still rewards for the support by the grassroots.
