Education
is an emotive issue. Why? It is the future of a family or a nation. And nearly
everyone wants the best for their children. When a Government fails to deliver,
then parents have to look at alternatives, even if that is a painful one – from
a financial standpoint.
So
many nations have the best people to design curricula, lead changes, or even
implement them. In Malaysia, we love to “chop and change” or do a "flip-flop" – whether it is PPSMI,
PPI, 1BestariNet or from white to black shoes (and maybe back to white again!)
Ministers
have a mandate to implement the future, today. But some want us to go back to
the 9th or 10th century when times were more sedate and serene. Then we
could practice khat or Chinese calligraphy with little care in the world, other
than a potential Mongol invasion. The khat controversy has been raging for over
two weeks – a self-created monster! There is an inherent psyche of some people
to create diversions or the proverbial “mountain out of a molehill”.
As
Azly Rahman rightly says,
-
Khat is not Jawi;
-
Khat is not Bahasa Malaysia/Melayu;
-
Khat is not daily-use Arabic.
What
is the real agenda? Creeping or creepy Islamization? Promote the Quran?
Instead
of STEM, coding skills or multi-culturalism and diversity in education, we are
mired in the sand dunes of irrationality. Do we want a progressive
forward-looking, united nation or we prefer the “Mediocre Malaysia” of the last
70 years? That is central – not black shoes or khat!
Do we go back to the halcyon days of the Umayyad or Abbasid empires? The golden era of Islam had an openness to knowledge from
Hindu India or Buddhist/Taoist China. In fact, they like China of today developed from the
“technologies” that were available then be it in maths, science, philosophy or
literature.
The
Education Ministry is the biggest recipient in the 2019 Budget. An allocation
of RM60.2 billion or 19.1 per cent of total government spending. But as the
Americans like to say, are we getting the “best bang for our buck”? Not on my
record. It is not curricula, facilities, books but leadership. And if positions of leadership is restricted to one select group then khat or black
shoes cannot unite us!
Reference:
Azly
Rahman, Khat and the ecology of creeping Islamization https://azlyrahman-post.blogspot.com
Fa
Abdul, Time to learn from your past mistakes, Education Ministry https://www.malaysiakini.com
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