The Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 seems very comprehensive. It aims to improve the quality of education in both primary and secondary schools so that Malaysians would emerge competitive in a very globalized world. Apart from some minor hiccups regarding hours devoted to the teaching of English and Bahasa Malaysia, the Blueprint appears ambitious. In Malaysia where lives of citizens are overdetermined by ethnic and racial considerations, the Blueprint might not have the intended effect. 56 years after independence, things have not changed in Malaysia. Quality of education is poor and fast deteriorating. We depend more and more foreign workers. We do not have technical and engineering skills to match the requirement of foreign investors. The civil service completely dominated by one race with little or no participation of Chinese and Indians. The government is completely run by UMNO under the façade of BN. The standard of English is poor. Emphasis on Bahasa Malaysia while important does not make any difference to us in meeting global changes. National schools are breeding racism and religious bigotry. Tamils schools are in a dire straits. Without the economic strength of the community, Chinese schools would have deteriorated. Universities especially public universities are in a sorry of state affairs. UMNO completely dominates the landscape of public universities where top officials have to be screened by UMNO or its agents. So given these impediments, how are we going to emerge as champions of quality education. In fact, countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and others have surpassed us in terms of producing quality students. Now we have to compare ourselves to Mynammar and Bangladesh. So who is to be faulted? Blueprint is not going to make any difference to Malaysia unless this is profound political transformation.
Posted on: Sat, 07 Sep 2013 00:55:40 +0000
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