Maybe the biggest problem with Malaysian education isn’t so much that we’re are stifling our kids, having too rigid a system, adopting anachronistic methods to teach and overall, blocking their path towards excellence.
Maybe our fundamental flaw is our very definition of excellence – the path itself that we’ve chosen (especially for our kids). Take the following most under-emphasised subjects in Malaysia.
- Physical education: We wonder why our obesity rate is top in SEA, right? and why our sporting excellence doesn’t normally go beyond light racket games, right? (Oh sure, Malaysians are fanatical about sports but isn’t there a huge disconnect between being a super-enthusiast for football yet being 30 pounds over-weight as a society?)
- The Arts (including painting, dance, sculpture, poetry, drama, etc.): Didn’t Robin Williams, in ‘Dead Poets’ Society’, say that whilst subjects like Engineering and Computer Science are noble pursuits to sustain life, it’s beauty, romance and love which we stay alive for? Wouldn’t neglect of these subjects produce the phenomenon whereby everyone (including the neighbour’s dog) has the latest technological means for communication yet have nothing meaningful to communicate about?
- Moral Education: Given the daily outcry over our politicians’ screwing up of the country, the injustices and the general impression that Malaysian lawmakers often can’t tell right from wrong. It’s strange this subject is at best seen as a timetable stop-gap?
- Religious Teaching: ‘Nuff said! We’ve reached a point in where the most salient kind of religious communiqués is also the most angry, hateful, selfish and ethno-centric (which is the sexy word for “Deny my faith its rights and I’ll kick your ass”) which totally implies a wrong view of God i.e. it implies a God as petty as Ibrahim Ali himself
And don’t even get me started on those subjects which we never engage our kids with at all: Philosophy, Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology, etc. You know what’s most tragic? Our kids actually believe they know ‘all about’ politics and what life means and so on.
Yet, when are the only/main times when our kids ‘learn’ about this? From the newspapers and hearing grown-ups argue – are you concerned now?
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