Malaysia's Haze Crisis: Parents Frustrated by School Closure Policies

Every morning this week, 45-year-old Alisha Chan grabbed her phone to check the air quality and look for school announcements. She needed to know if her two children — aged 17 and seven — would be going to school or staying home. Smoke from huge fires in Indonesia has been drifting over Malaysia, turning the sky hazy and making the air unhealthy to breathe. When pollution gets bad enough, schools in some parts of Malaysia are forced to close, often with very little warning.

Alisha works full-time and said the last-minute announcements make her life very stressful. 'Today, while we were preparing for our children to stay home because of the school closures, the Education Ministry suddenly announced that schools would be open as usual tomorrow,' she said. 'We can't plan things in advance and have to make arrangements at the last minute.' She added that not all workers can do their jobs from home, which makes surprise closures even harder to handle.

Many other parents in Malaysia share her frustration. Online groups for parents have filled up with complaints about the confusing and changing rules around school closures. K. Rizal, whose 10-year-old child goes to school in Kuala Lumpur, said the problem is that closures depend on readings from air-quality stations that may not reflect what every neighbourhood is actually experiencing. 'I can see the haze, but because the reading at the monitoring station is fine, we have to pretend like it's OK and go to school,' she said.

The haze comes from large fires burning across Sumatra and Kalimantan, two big islands in Indonesia. Scientists say an unusually strong El Niño weather pattern has made this year's dry season much worse than normal, helping the fires spread. Malaysia has dealt with this kind of smoke pollution for decades, but many people feel that governments have not done enough to stop it from happening again and again. Frustration is growing not just at the disruption, but at the fact that the companies responsible are rarely held accountable.

Families in Johor, a state in southern Malaysia, have faced some of the worst disruptions. Schools there were closed for a full week starting October 10. Truck driver Shahruddin Haeal Helmy Mohd Noh, 39, lives in Johor but works in Singapore, as does his wife. When schools closed, they had to send their two children to their grandparents' home, since both parents could not stay home from work.

The rules about when schools must close have also kept changing, adding to the confusion. On October 14, Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek set the threshold for closures at an Air Pollutant Index reading above 200. Just days earlier, a temporary rule had required closures when readings went above 180, or above 150 for three days in a row. API readings between zero and 50 mean the air is good, while readings above 300 are considered hazardous.

When schools do close, students are usually expected to learn from home online. But education groups say this is not easy for every family, since some children do not have devices or a reliable internet connection. 'Home-based learning should not become a mere formality,' said Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim from the parent watchdog group PAGE. She urged schools to consider the needs of students from disadvantaged households.

Beyond the school closures, many Malaysians are angry that Indonesia has rejected offers of help from neighbouring countries to fight the fires. An Indonesian government official sparked outrage online by saying that Indonesia 'supplies oxygen' to Singapore and Malaysia when there is no haze. Malaysian politician Lim Guan Eng called on ASEAN countries to set up a permanent task force to fight fires year-round, and warned that if Indonesia keeps refusing regional help, Malaysia may seek legal action to claim financial compensation.