Quality education for all

By SIRA HABIBU sira@thestar.com.my

Kuala Lumpur (19 July 2011) : MALAYSIA has come a long way from the days when education was made compulsory for all. Years after that there were still children of school age doing all kinds of other things but being in school and learning so that they can improve their quality of life.Poverty was among the reasons for them not being in school. The distances to schools was another factor. But over the years, the government managed to overcome the obstacles that kept children from school. The Education Ministry provided those from low income families with free textbooks and meals. There are now many schools in rural areas, and most of them within walking distance from villages where the children live. And where villages are small and a distance from each other, there are hostels for children to stay while they attend a school that caters to the needs of scarcely populated regions or highlands. Thus today, except for a few for reasons not mentioned above almost all children of schoolgoing age, including those with physical disabilities, are in school. In this sense, Malaysia has achieved much of what other countries are still working on. While the situation would, many years ago, have been described as the democratisation of education, it can no longer be today. It is not enough to just provide education to all. Young Malaysians must be provided with quality education for them to avail themselves of opportunities to live well and compete in a new globalised world. And so, the opportunities must be available to all equally and without prejudice. Only then can the country truly say we provide education for all. It is thus most reassuring to all Malaysians to note what Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also education minister, had to say at a meeting of East Asian education ministers on Monday that Malaysias journey to that end is just beginning. Among other things that he said at the two-day Informal East Asia Summit Education Ministers Meeting in Bali is that the focus is on raising

the education standard at school as well as tertiary level, where effort is being made to harmonise higher education among Asean countries. It is good that Muhyiddin has put on record that Malaysias journey to the forefront of education is just beginning, because if anything, it would at least discourage the next education minister from saying once again that the journey is just beginning and in the end getting nowhere. Perhaps the number of unemployed graduates that the countrys universities produce says something of the journey.

Group Members, ( PPISMP SEM 3 RBT 1) Dymphana Johnmy Razuwa Farahin Binti Rosman Sarsikala A/P T.Sivam