New Straits Times, Friday, December 29, 2006

Zainah Anwar
Keep pupils thirsty for knowledge

IF there is one major area of reform that is so needed in this country, it is the education system. Enough has been said on everything that is wrong with the system, from primary to higher education.

Let us now focus our attention and summon our political will to do what is right to produce the first-rate human capital that we all agree is needed to drive the knowledge-based society we aspire to under the Ninth Malaysia Plan.

So I am looking forward to the release of the Education Ministry’s "National Education Blueprint 2006-2010".

It promises a tougher screening process for aspiring teachers. At some 60 million in numbers, teachers are the single largest group of trained professionals in the world.

And yet I feel we do not pay enough attention to how teachers are trained, hired and rewarded in Malaysia for the precious task of educating minds that can think creatively, critically, and rationally, and to foster positive personal growth of our youth within an empowering learning environment.

Yes, it is a tall order. But for this tall order, only the best should be selected, supported, and rewarded. It should be a profession that signals dedication and passion, not one that signals failure, and a choice of last resort.

Investing in top quality teacher education is key to producing the first class minds we say we need.

I hope the new education reform will also produce teachers who will not only inspire, but who can also admit what they don’t know and promise the student a journey of discovery together, instead of shutting down an inquiring mind.

In the age of the Internet and democratic access to knowledge, many teachers are intimidated by students who know more than they do on many subjects, very often outside of the curriculum.

My 12-year-old nephew has developed an interest in history and religion. He is Googling stuff on World War II, Hitler and Mussolini, Buddhism and the concept of yin and yang. He is also asking his father endless questions.

He is looking forward to starting Form One next month, but is worried there will be no one in his class to discuss his new interest, not even his teacher.

The education reform promises a curriculum to produce all-round thinkers. Certainly then we must expect an overhaul of our examination-oriented system which promotes rote learning and regurgitation of facts.

An education system that emphasises only competition, control and conformity cannot produce thinkers, let alone all-round thinkers.

How does it intend to teach lessons that will open up the mind and expand the soul and help to prepare one to lead a full and fulfilling life?

Is it possible that we could have an education system that promotes the joy of exploring, innovating and discovering? Will we have the teachers who can provide this leadership?

I hope the new curriculum will provide more time for students to enjoy arts education — music, drama, dance and the visual arts.

Numerous studies have shown the benefits of arts education to student performance academically and behaviourally, especially among those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Arts education promotes multiple perspectives and multiple solutions to problems, develops self-esteem, fosters thinking and creativity, and connects students to themselves and each other in different ways.

Perhaps we would not have so many Mat Rempit if these boys had grown up with a richer diversity of experiences in school that would have led to a wider range of choices and interests that they could channel their energy and time into.

I feel very lucky to have been brought up not just in a family where books, newspapers and current affairs magazines were a daily diet, but went to primary and secondary schools where literature, poetry, music, dance, sports and uniformed bodies were integral to the curriculum, and therefore involved every single student.

It made a major difference to the learning environment at the Sultan Ibrahim Girls’ School, which for decades was led by an inspiring headmistress who believed in developing us into whole young adults.

How much things have changed. I attended a school reunion some years ago, only to find the alumni from the school band that won the national competition in 1980 performing their winning repertoire with far more gusto and joy than the listless performance of the teenage band members some 20 years later.

When the dancing began, the young girls were too scared to join us, even though there were no men around. Since their teachers remained slumped and glum in the chairs, the girls did not have it in them to throw care to the wind and join in the fun, even though they whispered to us they wished they could.

That the 60-year-olds among the alumni could dance the night away, while the 16-year-olds could only stand and watch from the dark corners, was a sad sight.

I still think of this depressing incident to illustrate how disempowering and oppressive our education system has become.

When the young who should be full of life and gumption appear lifeless and dispirited, not because they were born that way, but because adults who claim to know better have failed them, then it is the nation that loses out.

Is it any wonder that many friends teaching in the universities also complain that, except for some outstanding students, most in their classes barely ask questions, offer any opinion, or sparkle with interest.

I hope this reform process will bring about an education system that fosters positive personal growth, nurtures an inquiring mind hungry for knowledge, teaches critical and creative thinking, and promotes a diversity of experiences that place value not just on academic achievement but also on music, drama, dance, sports, societies, uniformed bodies and learning with teachers and students of all races and socio-economic background.

To produce a culturally and intellectually literate person able to function effectively in an increasingly knowledge-based global economy is no longer a luxury for countries of the world.

Every major country that intends to be competitive and stay on top of the game is going through educational reform because of the changing demands of a globalised world and the demand for new talent.

But can we be creative and critical, promote diversity and respect differences, be culturally and intellectually literate and be able to compete at the global level, when dogmatism and racial and religious bigotry displayed in the past year or so in our body politic, become our dominant public culture?

Over the past two months as we seemed to teeter on the precipice, many saner voices have spoken out. It is my fervent prayer that as we enter the 50th anniversary of Merdeka, the public debate on what it means to be Malaysian will be more rigorous and more thoughtful than ever, and that in the end, it is rational and reasoned thinking that will prevail.

I hope we can make a start in small ways and that individually, we commit ourselves to get to know our neighbours of other races better, go for lunch with a colleague of a different religion, join a society that is inclusive of others or open up or link up our own organisation to others and send our children to schools that reflect the diversity of Malaysia.

More than ever, we need to consciously build a public culture of citizenship that cuts across ethnic and religious boundaries.

If we genuinely succeed in reforming our national education system to make it attractive enough to be the school of first choice for most Malaysians, then we will be on track to reap further benefits of a world where diversity is a source of riches, not of threats.

While others in the West are only trying to cope with it today, we Malaysians have lived with it successfully. Let us build on that.