A much anticipated Sept 11 on our education front

MALAYSIA EDUCATION BLUEPRINT: In the spirit of openness, the feedback must be addressed seriously

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 was unanticipated in America. The tragic event led to a globally significant chain of events, including the war on terror and self-reflections on leaders and leadership, regional and global coalitions of the willing and unwilling.

Sept 11, 2012 in Malaysia was an anticipated event, marked by the launch of the preliminary report Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025, promising "Three Waves of Changes".

The blueprint is the roadmap to transform Malaysian education and to ensure that the nation has one of the best systems of education in the world. In the interest of the future, the Education Blueprint hopes to foster the coalition of the willing across the political divides.

Malaysia's educational strength is the cumulative developmental strength of the system as a whole, infrastructure and all. In terms of leadership at the political level, the strength is the cumulative strength of political leaders who continue to champion the cause of education through their careers.

The prime minister has been the minister of education. The deputy prime minister has also championed education throughout his career. The education system now has a critical mass of educators who are specialists in the major fields of education. Professional educational associations, teachers' unions, parent-teacher associations and other non-governmental organisations have responded to educational concerns seriously.

Now there is the alignment of political will, professional will and societal will to ensure that future generations have the best education possible. The basic model of educational planning focus is "access, equity, and efficiency". Malaysian educational planners are mindful and have added two other important foci, "quality and unity".

The elaborated model used by Malaysia now is "access, quality, equity, efficiency and unity". The mindfulness is evidence that we do adopt and adapt according to the realities, priorities and stages of development of our society.

Also, the thrust on public accountability is explicitly recognised. The attributes and aspirations for every student focus on the following: bilingual (and preferably trilingual) proficiency, mastery of relevant and mature knowledge, dynamic thinking skills, robust leadership skills, ethics and spirituality, and national identity.

Educational development is always a matter of focus and refocus, targeting the moving target of development, creating opportunities for every person to benefit from what the educational system offers across the life-span.

The earlier and immediate past Educational Development Plans 2001-2010 and Educational Development Master Plan (2006-2010), together with policy initiatives not in the plans, are still being implemented.

In continuity of the earlier road map, the Education Blueprint suggests 11 thrusts (symbolic of Sept 11!), as follows: 1. Equal access to quality education of international standard; 2. Ensuring every child is proficient in Bahasa Malaysia and English; 3. Developing values/virtues-driven Malaysians; 4. Transforming the teaching profession as a profession of choice; 5.Ensuring high-performing school leaders in every school; 6. Decentralising decision-making to solve local problems, 7. Leveraging information, communication and technology to scale up quality learning; 8. Transforming ministry delivery capabilities and capacities; 9. Enhancing partnership with parents, community and the private sector; 10. Maximising student outcomes for every ringgit of investment; and 11. Increasing transparency for direct public accountability.

The blueprint is a preliminary blueprint. A preliminary report is not a final report. Society has been assured that the government welcomes feedback and other significant ideas to further formulate policies and enhance practices.

In this spirit of openness, the feedback given after the launch must be addressed as seriously as before formulating the blueprint for the launch. Also, there must be an open mindset that ideas after the launch can be of equal or greater significance than the framework of policy ideas contained in the preliminary blueprint. If mindsets are closed after the preliminary launch and the promise of transparency and receptivity not honoured, then we lose the opportunity to be the best that our citizenry can be.

Good ideas are hard to come by. Therefore, when good ideas are presented they should not be hurriedly glossed over and dismissed.

Educational development, as development in other areas of society, can never be final and absolute. There are always new challenges from within the society and externally. New challenges demand new thinking and new solutions with the accompanying resources. There are also the challenges of renewal, of replicating best practices, confronting new issues and concerns and generating new initiatives for excellence.

Educational changes must occur as there are changes in knowledge, in science and technology, in economic and cultural domains. Underlying all educational challenges are the challenges of thought leadership, knowledge creation, development of human potentialities and institutional and system capacities.