LONDON: The Education Ministry will intensify efforts to fine-tune the National Education Blueprint to better implement its measures.
Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid said there would be continuous engagement with relevant institutions in Malaysia and abroad to gather feedback to improve the implementation.
He said such an engagement would also allow the ministry to gauge the progress of the implementation and rectify any shortcomings.
"We also need to continue working with other international institutions such as the United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’ (Unesco) as it helps us link with all the world class organisations to improve our education standards.
"We will continue working closely with the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation as we cannot be working in a silo to achieve our goals," he said after a dialogue with Malaysia students in the United Kingdom here yesterday.
Present were Malaysia High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Ireland Datuk Ahmad Rasidi Hazizi, director-general of Education Ministry Datuk Dr Amin Senin and the ministry's Education Performance and Delivery Unit chief executive officer Khadijah Abdullah.
Mahdzir cited an example of the ministry's collaboration with Unesco's Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development as a positive engagement in finding solution for issues on indisciplined, bullying and gangsterism involving students.
"Our collaboration with the Cambridge English Assessment has worked very well as shown by the significant improvement of our students and teachers in achieving the Common European Reference of Framework standard.
"It is crucial to note that we are not talking about producing students who can score an A in English but we want them to communicate fluently. That is why we have engaged world renowned Cambridge University," he said.
Mahdzir said the ministry welcomed all quarters including academicians, professionals, university students to share their ideas in improving the blueprint.
"While the blueprint has been recognised as the most comprehensive masterplan to transform our education system, we need to add value from time to time as we have the roadmap and the Key Performance Index (KPI) to achieve from 2013 to 2025.
"I have told academicians from several local universities that this (implementation of blueprint) is a progressive work and we treasure all the input that will help to take our education system to greater heights," he said.
Mahdzir said his work visit in Paris to attend the Unesco 39th general assembly and London had been successful as he could share the latest update on the implementation of the blueprint with an international audience and Malaysian students here.
He said it was important for Malaysians to understand that implementation of the blueprint was not the sole responsibility of the ministry.
"I wish to see all of us play our part to help the ministry by providing input and refraining from being negative on changes for the benefits for our education system," he said.