KUALA LUMPUR: Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik has expressed his readiness to consider introducing other styles of calligraphy apart from khat (a form of Malay-Arabic calligraphy) or jawi writing in the school curriculum.
He said it was an interesting issue to be discussed in detail as the country’s population was made up of various ethnic groups with their own artistic identities.
“It is interesting to discuss the issue considering that our art education emphasises artistic elements from various ethnic groups in Malaysia,” he told reporters after attending the Prime Minister’s Cup Debate Competition 2019 finals at the Putra World Trade Centre, here, today.
Maszlee was responding to questions about the possibility of the government introducing other calligraphy styles such as Chinese calligraphy to schoolchildren.
This follows the Education Ministry’s decision to introduce khat (a form of Malay-Arabic calligraphy writing) as part of the Bahasa Melayu subject for Year Four pupils next year.
It was welcomed by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who said the objections were only coming from a small part of the community.
The prime minister was reported to have said that the government had always adhered to the shared prosperity policy and had never prevented the use of the writing systems of other languages.
Maszlee said he had met Chinese-language print and electronic media editors to discuss and elaborate on the introduction of jawi writing, that certain things had been improved so that teaching it would not further burden pupils and teachers. - BERNAMA