Current Affairs

PR sets up National Education Taskforce

Pakatan Rakyat today announced the formation of a Pakatan Rakyat Education Taskforce (PET) to study and respond to the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2015. Speaking at a press conference in the DAP National Headquarters in Kuala Lumpur today, MP for PJ Utara Tony Pua announced the formation of the taskforce to ensure that education is a national agenda and not delegated to the Ministry of Education.

“We will submit a detailed report to the Ministry of Education in October, we want our views to be taken into consideration by the ministry as the future of a generation is at stake,” Pua said.

PET will comprise Pakatan Rakyat lawmakers and experts including Nurul Izzah Anwar, Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, Chong Eng, Dr Halimah Ali, Dr Ong Kian Ming, Che Uda Che Nik, Haji Abbas Awang, and Dato Abu Bakar Chik.

Pua said that the panel sought the publication and disclosure of four reports in order to assist PET to make constructive recommendations to the Ministry of Education. These four reports are: UNESCO Report 2012, World Bank Report (First Quarter 2010), Independent Malaysia Review Panel, and Independant International Review Panel.

At the moment, these four reports are not available to the public and the ministry has only revealed parts of its content. MP for Lembah Pantai, Nurul Izzah Anwar said that the Ministry of Education’s blueprint is a glossy view without actual discussion on the problems faced in education at the moment. “This is not sufficient and we are not convinced that this is the best blueprint for the future of our nation,” she said.

It has become somewhat of a tradition for every new Education Minister who takes office to introduce new policies, some hastily presented without public consultation. Notable among policy flip flops is the teaching of mathematics and science in English (PPSMI) which has since been reversed by the Uphold Bahasa Malaysia and Strengthen the English Language (MBMMBI) policy.

Recent DAP recruit and political analyst by profession, Dr Ong Kian Ming criticised the newly-announced Malaysian Education Blueprint. “RM20 billion of the RM40 billion from the 9th MP which was allocated to education was spent on development expenditure. Despite this large expenditure, the results only showed marginal improvements.” he said.

(Ed: In the earlier version of the article, we incorrectly quoted Dr Ong. This error has since been rectified and we apologise for the mistake.)

,” he said. – The Rocket

One comment on “PR sets up National Education Taskforce

  1. Our education took a turn for the worse when in 1970, it was announced that MCE will be scrapped and in turn all subjects except language studies will be taught in BM. That was downhill after that and many Malaysians missed their chance for being proficient in BM and English.

    Now the state of English in Malaysia is a headache for employers who had to deal especially with oversea traders. In the meantime, BN ministers’ children were sent overseas to better their English (some patriotism).

    This in the language of the great poet, Shakespeare, ‘a rape of our education system’ at the expense of the rakyat. The is still hope though.

    Throw out these scums in the next GE and let’s return to a freedom of education which I believe many Malaysians would choose.

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