==> Pls visit new site at http://malaysia-today.net/ <==

By Choi Tuck Wo, The Star

PARIS: Malaysia and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) experts will jointly review the national education system in line with global changes.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the move would provide a more balanced assessment of the country’s education system.

He stressed that the review would cover only the implementation process and not policy which had been accepted by the people.

“We will draw up the terms of reference for the review and, hopefully, it can start this year,” he told Malaysian journalists after meeting Unesco director-general Koichiro Matsuura at the organisation’s headquarters yesterday.

Muhyiddin arrived here earlier for a three-day working visit.

This is his first working visit overseas as deputy premier and Education Minister.

Muhyiddin said education must move in tandem with, if possible ahead of, what’s happening around the world.

“We’re looking at the bigger picture. We want our education quality to be on par with world standards,” he said, citing the progress in the fields of technology, science, ICT and knowledge,

He said Malaysia would benefit from the experience and expertise of Unesco in helping to improve the system to achieve the national education objectives.

“They can provide us with a third person’s perspective on how to further raise our education standards to a higher level,” he added.

Muhyiddin, however, said the review did not mean there were weaknesses in the education system which had achieved success over the years.

Muhyiddin said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has been invited to address the 35th Unesco General Conference’s first plenary session on Oct 6.

This would be the first time in Malaysia’s 51-year history with Unesco that its Prime Minister would address the world body’s opening plenary session as such invitations are usually reserved for heads of states.

He said it was a historic milestone for Malaysia as Unesco has never invited a head of government to give a keynote speech at its first plenary session.

“This will provide an opportunity for our Prime Minister to present his vision and mission in addressing issues of global interests,” he said after presenting Najib’s acceptance letter to Matsuura.

Muhyiddin met Elysee Palace secretary-general Claude Gueant and French Education Minister Luc Chatel before attending a dinner with the Malaysian community in France.

Comments (11)

...
written by Ken Liew, June 30, 2009 10:21:05

Do our EDU minisir, got the brains to communicate with them??

Or will he just deny this and that?

report abuse

disagree 0

agree 10

...
written by Jan, June 30, 2009 10:22:53

How come most Malays take matriculation as university entrance exam whereas the non malays take STPM? Is it stated in the constitution? Can the UNESCO take a look at this?

report abuse

disagree 0

agree 16

...
written by cheemengwong, June 30, 2009 10:34:14

While Malaysia is still busy and engaging itself with study with the so called experts,countries like Singapore has already adopted and micro tuning their education system to achieve the best results possible for their Raayats.

Meantime, Malaysian Raayats are still grappling with Inglish both written and spoken. Just the other day my non english educated bumi engineer wrote "****" for the intended word "hook" in his engineering drawing. Hook is pronounced as fook and written as "****".

There is najis/shit everywhere, be careful.

report abuse

disagree 0

agree 5

..., Lowly rated comment [Show]

...
written by Jan, June 30, 2009 10:47:15

It's because every policy is slanted towards the dominant race how can we ever achieve eminence? Those who formulated those policies are so stupid they never thought by retaining bright non malays to teach the bumiputras they will uplift their standard higher. They rather a HP6 bumi lecturer teach a bumi who in turn become a QP6 lecturer. And the malaise goes on and on.......

report abuse

disagree 0

agree 5

...
written by densemy, June 30, 2009 11:27:06

"If I may ask the question - what is the use of our independence?"

I think batsman it has something to do with the right to think and plan for yourselves.


The Brits left Malaysia with a pretty classy infrastructure, a sound constitution and an education system which if it had moved in the right direction ( see Singapore) would be amongst the leaders in its field

Malays have spent the last 50 yrs tearing all that apart, the goal for such destruction defeats me completely

But your comments give me reason to believe that Malays cannot see past their own limited outlook and thus cannot plan into the future

report abuse

disagree 0

agree 15

...
written by chiongguo, June 30, 2009 11:59:20

He stressed that the review would cover only the implementation process and not policy which had been accepted by the people.

I find what our Min.of Edu is trying to do rather silly. He is engaging foreign experts at great expense to "study the implementation of the policies" and they have no need to look at the "policies that have already been accepted by the people." Don't have to engage all these experts. Don't have to pay me any money and I can report to you what the system is like at the moment.In just ONE word - lousy ! Save a lot of paper also.

If the underlying philosophy is faulty or not sound and we do not take into consideration newer understanding of how we learn and how such learning will have an impact on society then no matter how perfect your implementation is it will only be constructing a palace on quicksand.

Don't waste the rakyat's money on a political venture and from the statement above this is all it is.

report abuse

disagree 0

agree 3

...
written by asguard, June 30, 2009 12:19:44

Even if commendations is given by Unesco to revamp education policy they won't listen for they think that they knew better! So don't waste time!

report abuse

disagree 0

agree 1

...
written by Sinewy, June 30, 2009 13:46:32

Do we need experts to tell us that STPM and Matriculation is not the same? There are those stupid professors playing politics to suggest that Matriculation is as good if not better than STPM. This is a lot of bullshit..In this stupid country, if the education elites think that Matriculation is so good then why maintain STPM? What is the political agenda to discriminate certain group of people? Why not the learned government administrators and politicians adopt a single excellent Matriculation entrance for all malaysians? So what is the problem with that? What is the aim of the government in refusing to do just that? Can the politicians give us an honest answer?

report abuse

disagree 0

agree 5

...
written by hellosunshine, June 30, 2009 17:48:30

Like I mentioned in another MT thread, we should revert the missionary schools back to English as the medium of instruction since we already have the National Type Chinese and Tamil schools. Why not English Type too? The National schools can continue using BM as the medium of instruction int he cities and rural areas. That way, we have the diversity to meet the global challenges head on. It took one racist dictator 22 years to screw up our education system and he had the gall to announce Malaysia will be a developed nation in 2020. Yeah, right!

report abuse

disagree 1

agree 5

...
written by Arowana, June 30, 2009 23:22:19

Muhyiddin Yassin doesn't even realize English was not a compulsory subject even all this year in cabinet.

Sick and tired of all this wayang.

report abuse

disagree 0

agree 1