PUTRAJAYA: Academicians must find ways to attract the young generation to love education as their interest in pursuing higher education has eroded.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the nation should not wait until the situation becomes critical before thinking of the best methods to overcome the matter.
"One of the most important missions of academicians is to find new formulas so that education and the world of knowledge are seen as interesting and fun.
"We must find new innovations in the process of imparting knowledge, stimulate research and spark inspiration.
"To ensure that the tradition of knowledge and scholarships are able to attract the interest of young people, academics themselves must shift and move away from limited understanding or being too oriented with the old ways.
"The shaping of talents today cannot be referred to education in the lecture room alone. What more if we want to make the cultivation of superior values as a big core," he said when officiating the national level 2023 Academia Day and Month celebrations at the ministry headquarters, today.
He added that academicians must learn to adapt and take advantage of current technology and not see them as 'enemies'.
The academic world, he said, must change and there must be a shift to the way of thinking and working.
"Academicians cannot reject technology and see the progress of applications and the digital world as a threat or something foreign that they can disregard.
"All modern developments must be see as an advantage to be used to their best," he said.
Separately, Khaled hoped the government will support its Budget 2024 three main proposals to incorporate digitalisation so that the management and administering of its ecosystem will be a success.
He said they believe that digitalisation will heighten and propel their efforts to be excellent in the higher education sector.
"We also want to focus on the use of new digitalisation approaches for learning and teaching methods to make it more attractive.
"We will also stress on research and innovation which we believe will help spur the nation's economic growth as well as accommodation for our students in universities and polytechnics to be more conducive.
"These will be our main focus in 2024 Budget," he said.