Excursions, anyone?

MY niece, who is studying at a university, lives in a residential college where she shares a room with four students from other states. She came home for the mid-term semester break recently and shared some observations with her parents about her college mates. 
One pertinent observation she made, besides their weak command of the English language, was that they were somewhat “isolated” from the outside world. It was quite shocking to her that some of her college mates had not been to Kuala Lumpur before. 
“I tell them of some of the known places in Kuala Lumpur and it drew a blank stares. I talk about some famous shops and they didn’t know about them,” she said. 
She, too, had a dose of culture shock as some of her college mates spoke in their own dialects with thick accents, which was difficult for her to understand. “I had to get someone else to tell me what she means although she was speaking in Malay,” she added. 
Upon hearing her story, I extended an offer of a staycation in the federal capital for her and her roommates at any time of their convenience. But, it had to be an education trip for them like those school excursions that I went on during my secondary school days. 
Some of us, if not all, must have gone on at least one school trip before. Of the many trips organised by my school, I remembered getting permission to go for only two. 
My parents weren’t that big on school trips. The first was when I was in Form Three, where the teachers took us to the Veterinary Institute in Kluang (with a stopover at a pottery centre in Air Hitam before returning to Johor Baru). 
The second was when I was in Form Five when we visited the Chemistry Department, where most of us nearly threw up after we were told that the foul smelling thing in a basin in a sink behind us was a dead drug addict’s stomach lining. Well yes, unexciting trips these were.
 There were other trips, but I knew better than to ask my parents for permission for trips like the one to the federal capital (“I can always take you there during the holidays,” my father would say) or for picnicking at the Gunung Ledang waterfalls (there was something about the mountain that he didn’t want to tell us). I know they would not allow me to go unless it was an educational one. 
And, I don’t believe schools have stopped organising excursions as I still see many groups of schoolchildren, even those in kindergartens, at the Kuala Lumpur City Centre, for example, especially during school holidays. 
I know of some government linked companies that would bring students from schools in other states they have adopted on trips to Kuala Lumpur. Petrosains and Aquaria, for example, are the two venues that these children will visit. 
In fact, there is one school in Putrajaya which has some kind of an exchange programme with a school in Bandung, Indonesia, where a handful of students will go on study trips there. 
And, I have seen foreign students, all wearing the same coloured T-shirts and pants, at our own airports waiting to board their flight home.
 I can understand that parents are apprehensive about letting their children go on these trips. Affordability and safety could be the two main concerns, but I believe the benefits of these school excursions sometimes outweigh the risks. 
Inge Hol, the director of Educational Programmes and School Trips at Spark Languages in Southern Spain, offered some reasons why a student should go on a trip on her LinkedIn account. 
She said an overseas trip, for example, was an amazing opportunity for them to practise their language skills, especially communicative skills of understanding and speaking. 
I agree with her. I took my teenage niece and nephew to the United Kingdom and France a year ago and they were forced to listen, understand what is being told to them in English and to respond accordingly. 
And they did quite well on their own despite being shy to speak in any other language than Malay when I left them to do grocery shopping on their own at a supermarket in London. 
It can also expose them first-hand to the local culture. “With the increasing globalisation and internationalisation happening everywhere, it is vital for students to expand their worldview, to be taken out of their comfort zone and get an opportunity to appreciate other cultures. Without this awareness, students will find it difficult to become worldly citizens of the 21st century,” Hol said. 
She also said a visit abroad became a new culinary experience: meals or even just ingredients students might have never tasted, seen and even heard of. My niece was frowned upon when she dipped the McDonald’s fries into the sundae instead of tomato or chilli sauce. 
“I tell them it’s a perfectly normal thing to do. My friends and I do it all the time,” she said, laughing. 
I hope that they will take up my offer for a stay and a tour of Kuala Lumpur. Before venturing abroad (which is possible, given that universities undertake exchange programmes with foreign universities and educational tours abroad), they should know their own country first, especially anything and everything about the federal capital.