Dear all,
Just received the below Video from one of my WhatsApp group for sharing:
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. - Nelson Mandela
Following Mao's death in September 1976, Deng make his third political comeback and in December 1978 at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee. Having inherited a country beset with extreme poverty, deep social conflict, disenchantment with Communism and institutional disorder resulting from the chaotic political movements of the Mao era, Deng started the "Boluan Fanzheng" ("拨乱反正") program, reversing most of the Cultural Revolution policies, which brought the country back to order by the early 1980s. From 1977 to early 1979, he resumed the National College Entrance Examination program that had been interrupted by the Cultural Revolution for ten years, initiated the historic Reform and Opening-up of China ("改革开放"), desginated special economic zones including Shenzhen,
At the very beginning of the period of economic reform, Deng Xiaoping viewed education as the foundation for the ‘Four Modernisations’: modern agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology. In 1983 he proposed ‘Three Orientations’ for the Chinese education system — ‘education must be oriented to modernisation, to the world, and to the future’. In the same year, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council promulgated the Outline of Education Reform and Development in China, stressing ‘a strong nation lies in its education and a strong education system lies in its teachers’.
Later, in 1997, the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party decided that the national development strategy would be based on science and education. In 2004, the State Council issued The Action Plan for Invigorating Education 2003 to 2007, which placed education as the top strategic priority for the development of a modern China. According to the National Statistics Bureau of China (2012), the Chinese government has substantially increased the level of investment in education since 2006 (from 5,161 billion Yuan (2.82 per cent of GDP) in 2005 to 20,772 (4 per cent of GDP) billion Yuan in 2012). More recently, in 2010, the Ministry of Education enacted the Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020), which was aimed at transforming China into a leading knowledge- and technology-based country.
Extract from Koon Yew Yin: New Road Map to a Developed Nation:
Education Road Map:
A nation’s greatest asset is its people, and it is shameful and unacceptable if, after all the investment on education – Malaysia’s percentage of education as a proportion to total gross domestic product (GDP) is one of the highest in the world – this goes to waste. The situation of poor quality Malaysian human capital that is further falling behind in standards and skills compared with our counterparts in Asia and the rest of the world can only spell disaster in our efforts to arrive at the final destination of our road map. Unless the Government engages in drastic policy reform and a reversal of disastrous policies described here, it is driving our country– and our young generation especially - towards one of the biggest roadblocks in our ambition to become an advanced country.
In fact the poor human capital issue - not the physical capital one - has drawn concern from the private sector for a long time. According to a 2010 CEO Survey conducted by Monash University, employers cited the poor quality of human resources as one of the greatest challenges being faced by companies at that time. The CEOs also believed that the Malaysian education system is the strongest disadvantage of the country, and that educational standards and outcomes must be improved significantly to make a positive contribution to the business development climate in Malaysia
Proposals for Educational Reform:
●Ensure that education is secular-based and not made a political or religious football
●Practice transparency, fairness and integrity of governance in all aspects of education
●Reject racial, religious or political agendas to ensure an inclusive and progressive schooling system.
●Guarantee that every component of our national school system must be regarded as important in our multiracial society and must be provided fair and equal treatment especially in entry and budgetary policies.
●Make private education more affordable but raises their standards
●Set up fund for English medium schools and science and math education
●Remove political interference in education
●Reform the Scholarship and Matriculation System
●Stop the brain drain
Key Quotes of Deng Xiaoping Applicable to Malaysia
●We must firmly grasp management. Just making things isn't enough. We need to raise the quality
●Reform is China’s second revolution.
●When our thousands of Chinese students abroad return home, you will see how China will transform itself.
●It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice
References:
Second Finance Minister, Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah’s admission in December 2009 that the country was at a crossroads in its economic development and was facing unprecedented challenges.
Speaking to a high level audience – outside the country so that it failed to receive the attention it deserved in the local media - he noted the following concerns.
●The country is trapped in a low value-added, low wage and low productivity structure.
●While Singapore and Korea’s nominal per capita GDP grew within the last three decadesby nine and 12 times, respectively, Malaysia’s had grown only by a factor of four.
●Among the country’s peers of China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, Malaysia’s real GDP growth in the last three years was the second lowest at5.5 percent.
●The manufacturing sector was not investing up the value chain while the services sector remained low in growth and was under developed.
●The Malaysian economy has essentially stagnated in the last decade
To restart the stagnant economy, the Minister enumerated five areas for attention. These were:
●Boosting private initiative as the primary engine of growth;
●Improving the dynamics of competition in the domestic market place;
●Raising the private and social returns on education;
●Moving Malaysia away from its low value-added, low wage and low productivity structure
●Allowing meritocracy to prevail; and
●Stressing transparency and adherence to the highest standards of governance.
Since 2010, we have not only failed in the areas identified by Husni who is one of the more progressive UMNO Ministers, we have gone backwards.
https://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/Sslee_blog/2021-02-28-story-h1541943429-Malaysia_badly_needed_Education_Reform.jsp
https://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/Sslee_blog/2021-02-28-story-h1541943429-Malaysia_badly_needed_Education_Reform.jsp
