Shaping Tomorrow
I was listening to Ybhg Datuk Dr. Syed Ali Tawfik al-Attas presenting live on a shared facebook post dated 26 may 2018 on "On Malaysia's Future". I was astonished by his forum on his wisdom in analysing the political climate of Malaysia from 50 years ago until now specifically on education. He made a very sharp criticism on the education system and how the PH government should address the mindset of the Malaysians as a whole through the most important weapon, i.e, education. I am astonished by his impartial stand in delivering education as an academia irrespective of race and religion. He is a true Malaysian who really cares about what education is about. He inspires me by mentioning Datuk Onn Jafaar who is forced to step down from UMNO because he has the idea of nurturing Malaysia Malaysian and not Malaysia Malays. He warns of Malaysia's future if there is no effort in transforming/overhauling our education system without the interference of race and religion.
I fully agree with him over his views on the mentality of all Malaysians. For the past 5 or 6 decades, we have been brought up by our government who segregate all races giving priority to a certain race, giving perks and special consideration by lowering the standard to enter the universities to an untolerable low requirements which results in our graduates who are as dumb as when they entered the university. When this type of education continued for about half a century, the devastation and destruction brought to the country is far beyond repair. I came across some lecturers in a particular university telling me many of the admin staff at the university are engineers, computer scientists, and even doctors and pharmacists. These graduates were from a certain univeristy of half-past six standard. When asked why they want to work as an admin staff and not to take up job in their own specialties, they are very frank to inform you that they don't dare to apply for those jobs because they have no confidence that they are able to become somebody in the technical stream. Sigh!! If the PH government does not make an effort to revamp and transform our education system, our country is doomed to approach irreversible fate. Like what Ybhg had mentioned, our new Education Minister should by hook or by crook to make a paradigm shift to transform totally our education system so that it is not race-based and religion-based. It means Malaysian Education should not mince together academic and religion. Religion should be out of our syllabus. I know it is hard but when there is a will, there is always a way. Our Tun, just before he stepped down as Prime Minister in 2003, he introduced PPSMI which is tough for the first year of implementation but we are able to get used to the system down the road for about a few years until Datuk Seri Najib and Tan Sri Muyiddin sworn into power. Everything changed by then. Tan Sri announced of replacing PPSMI with MBMMBI which I see is a total failure with the implementation of DLP. I will talk about DLP some other day.
Ybhg also stated that we as Malaysians must know how to speak English. It is embarrasing for us to converse with any foreigners with our half-baked English. It shows to the world how bad our education system is. We must be English language-savy to communicate with our counterparts in this borderless world. I suggest we have 2 sessions of school hours where everyone goes for the same curriculum with English as the medium of instruction for all technical subjects and Bahasa Melayu for non technical subjects in the morning and we can go for religious classes/vernaculars/co curricular activities/NILAM in the afternoon. Classes in the morning is in our standard curriculum but classes in the afternoon is outside and it is up to each authority to draw up the timetable which suit each community. In a way time spent in the afternoon is more to supporting the curriculum in the morning and students learn soft skills preparing them to be a holistic individual who will be able to solve his problem in a pluralistic society later.
The forum took about forty-five minutes. He talked a lot. His broad knowledge, his accurate analysis and his sharp view and criticism are great inspiration to me. It enlightens my day. If only every Malaysian has this broad thinking like him, Malaysia is a great country. I love Malaysia.
I fully agree with him over his views on the mentality of all Malaysians. For the past 5 or 6 decades, we have been brought up by our government who segregate all races giving priority to a certain race, giving perks and special consideration by lowering the standard to enter the universities to an untolerable low requirements which results in our graduates who are as dumb as when they entered the university. When this type of education continued for about half a century, the devastation and destruction brought to the country is far beyond repair. I came across some lecturers in a particular university telling me many of the admin staff at the university are engineers, computer scientists, and even doctors and pharmacists. These graduates were from a certain univeristy of half-past six standard. When asked why they want to work as an admin staff and not to take up job in their own specialties, they are very frank to inform you that they don't dare to apply for those jobs because they have no confidence that they are able to become somebody in the technical stream. Sigh!! If the PH government does not make an effort to revamp and transform our education system, our country is doomed to approach irreversible fate. Like what Ybhg had mentioned, our new Education Minister should by hook or by crook to make a paradigm shift to transform totally our education system so that it is not race-based and religion-based. It means Malaysian Education should not mince together academic and religion. Religion should be out of our syllabus. I know it is hard but when there is a will, there is always a way. Our Tun, just before he stepped down as Prime Minister in 2003, he introduced PPSMI which is tough for the first year of implementation but we are able to get used to the system down the road for about a few years until Datuk Seri Najib and Tan Sri Muyiddin sworn into power. Everything changed by then. Tan Sri announced of replacing PPSMI with MBMMBI which I see is a total failure with the implementation of DLP. I will talk about DLP some other day.
Ybhg also stated that we as Malaysians must know how to speak English. It is embarrasing for us to converse with any foreigners with our half-baked English. It shows to the world how bad our education system is. We must be English language-savy to communicate with our counterparts in this borderless world. I suggest we have 2 sessions of school hours where everyone goes for the same curriculum with English as the medium of instruction for all technical subjects and Bahasa Melayu for non technical subjects in the morning and we can go for religious classes/vernaculars/co curricular activities/NILAM in the afternoon. Classes in the morning is in our standard curriculum but classes in the afternoon is outside and it is up to each authority to draw up the timetable which suit each community. In a way time spent in the afternoon is more to supporting the curriculum in the morning and students learn soft skills preparing them to be a holistic individual who will be able to solve his problem in a pluralistic society later.
The forum took about forty-five minutes. He talked a lot. His broad knowledge, his accurate analysis and his sharp view and criticism are great inspiration to me. It enlightens my day. If only every Malaysian has this broad thinking like him, Malaysia is a great country. I love Malaysia.
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