THE annual address by the education minister on Monday was markedly different from previous ones. It was more academic and sombre. It was also held in a campus bringing home the message that fundamental changes in substance and approach are on the way – Pendidikan untuk semua (Education for all).
Beginning with Wawasan 2020 (W2020) and the five challenges that are more values based, Maszlee quickly associates them with the urgent need for values-based education. What with 2020 just around the corner. More curiously, this was well articulated in the Falsafah Pendidikan Kebangsaan (FPK) crafted long before W2020 and its claim of being in our own mould came to being. In other words, if we had been mindful about FPK, W2020 might have a better prospect to be realised on time.
Be that as it may, it is better late then never. It is time to breathe new lease of life in humanising education through the FPK and its five nuggets of wisdom. That said, it was suggested that another “M” is to be added to the existing “3M” of reading, writing and arithmetic. The new addition is: manusiawi, that is, humanness which is indeed fundamentally about creating a better human being or a more complete person. The FPK calls for the nurturing of a “balanced and harmonic” individual that is now largely being usurped by the neoliberal term of “human capital” which is hardly balanced nor harmonic within the FPK framework.
Yes, we have digressed intentionally or otherwise taking the human-centricity away from the very ethos of education. Resulting in what some aptly call “education without soul”. This state of affairs is set to change.
The ministry has on record carried out some 50 interventions to uplift the situation nationwide successfully. No less are the dilapidated schools mainly in the rural and remote areas of Sarawak and Sabah. Still this did not prevent the Education Ministry from envisaging what the future is all about. One of the major items that strikes me hard was the suggestion to be environmentally-conscious including creating smoke-free ambient under the larger umbrella of Education for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Education 2030. This is in contrast to the cry for Education 4.0 led by the so-called nebulous Fourth Industry Revolution (IR4.0) as (over)promoted by the previous regime at the expense of SDGs.
However this does not mean that technology is any less important. Rather it is viewed from a more considered and balanced perspective of FPK. For example STEM is rendered as STREAM – broadening the dimensions and scope of interest more towards humanising education. Over the last few years, similar calls were made several times but it fell on deaf ears.
In this context too, TVET agenda was broached through the (re-)establishment of Kolej Vokasional alongside the polytechnics and community colleges, all linked to one another in a collaborative way. So are other institutions like the IPGMs as well as universities which have been urged yet again to drop their Ivory Tower or elitist image. Towards this end, the tagline advocated is: Schools for the Community. Universities for the Society.
In summary, the overall agenda laid out looks ambitious to return educators to what they do best. That is to educate for future which continues to remain uncertain and ambiguous. Yet it was logically argued and structured in doable phases that make the whole to be greater than the sums of its parts.
Simply put, education is no longer a task to be undertaken in isolation. Instead it is must be continuous, holistic and integrated as stated in the first sentence of FPK, which is now being reawakened to give deeper meaning to education to be collaboratively translated into reality. Just like the human being, no one part of the body can survive in isolation. So is the case for the education ecosystem. This in indeed why humanising education is imperative.
With some four decades of experience in education, Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak believes that “another world is possible”. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
