“If a school is not on the list, that doesn’t mean it has no disciplinary issues,” Chong was quoted by The Star as saying.
It was reported on Thursday that the list of schools at risk of serious disciplinary and drug problems had been leaked.
Chong, who heads a special committee on the matter, said it was unfair to the schools concerned as the list was for internal use only and not to be circulated.
Of the 402 schools, 311 were under Category 1 for disciplinary problems and 91 under Category 3 for disciplinary and drug issues.
Chong urged parents to remain calm because it meant that those schools on the list would get more attention from the ministry and the police.
He told parents to view the move positively, saying that the perception that schools on the list were problematic was wrong.
“These schools are safe and the students are still safe. Things will be normal at these schools. Only now there will be more programmes for them, which is good,” he said.
Some teachers were dismayed to find their schools on the list while some others said the schools they were teaching in should be on the list.
A teacher in Selangor said she was shocked to find out that her school was classified as having disciplinary problems that needed police attention as no major problems had ever happened in the school.
She said schools had been told to keep a record of disciplinary problems that was shared with school liaison officers from the police. She believed that could have been how the list was drawn up.
Another teacher based in Selangor also insisted that her school did not deserve to be on the list.
“We have never had any big problems, so why are we listed as a hotspot?” she asked.
Student Nur Shalina (not her real name) said her school was classified as Category 3, but she had never seen drug addicts or pedlars there. The 16-year-old said the worst problem in school was truancy.
Another Fifth Former from a school up north said she could not think of anything serious happening there “besides the usual disrespecting of teachers or going against prefects”.
National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) secretary-general Harry Tan Huat Hock wanted to know why good schools were also on the list.
“We are simply perplexed and need an explanation,” he told The Star.
He also said the ministry should reveal the criteria used for designating schools as “hotspots”.
Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia chairman Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim said damage control was needed after the leak.
A parent-teacher association (PTA) deputy chairman, who requested anonymity, said there were many schools notorious for disciplinary problems but were not on the list.
He said his daughter’s school was identified as problematic, but the school did not have any big issue with its students besides truancy.
“I’ve been there for four years and there have been no major issues”, he said, adding that the school was a top performer in the SPM examination.
Independent Hin Hua High School in Klang also wants the ministry to disclose the grading criteria that led to it being on the list.
“Our students’ behaviour has been good throughout the years,” it said in a joint statement by its board, parent-teacher association and the alumni association.
“We take pride in our students’ capabilities in discipline, self-awareness and learning, and so being identified as a hotspot school is absurd,” school principal Ng Swee Geok said at a press conference at the school.
She said the school would write to the ministry and Bukit Aman police headquarters on the matter.