September 11, 2012 in Malaysia was an anticipated event, marked by the launch of the preliminary report Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025, promising “Three Waves of Changes”.
The blueprint is the roadmap to transform Malaysian education and to ensure that the nation has one of the best systems of education in the world. In the interest of the future, the Education Blueprint hopes to foster the coalition of the willing across the political divide.
Malaysia’s educational strength is the cumulative developmental strength of the system as a whole, infrastructure and all. In terms of leadership at the political level, the strength is the cumulative strength of political leaders who continue to champion the cause of education through their careers.
The Prime Minister has been the Minister of Education. The Deputy Prime Minister has also championed education throughout his career. The education system now has a critical mass of educators who are specialists in the major fields of education. Professional educational associations, teachers’ unions, parent-teacher associations and other non-governmental organisations have responded to educational concerns seriously.
Now there is the alignment of political will, professional will and societal will to ensure that future generations have the best education possible. The basic model of educational planning focus is “access, equity, and efficiency”. Malaysian educational planners are mindful and have added two other important foci, “quality and unity”.
The elaborated model used by Malaysia now is “access, quality, equity, efficiency and unity”. The mindfulness is evidence that we do adopt and adapt according to the realities, priorities and stages of development of our society.
Also, the thrust on public accountability is explicitly recognised. The attributes and aspirations for every student focus on the following: bilingual (and preferably trilingual) proficiency, mastery of relevant and mature knowledge, dynamic thinking skills, robust leadership skills, ethics and spirituality, and national identity.
Educational development is always a matter of focus and refocus, targeting the moving target of development, creating opportunities for every person to benefit from what the educational system offers across the life-span.
The earlier and immediate past Educational Development Plans 2001-2010 and Educational Development Master Plan (2006-2010), together with policy initiatives not in the plans, are still being implemented.
In continuity of the earlier road map, the Education Blueprint suggests 11 thrusts (symbolic of Sept 11!) as follows:
1. Equal access to quality education of international standard;
2. Ensuring every child is proficient in Bahasa Malaysia and English;
3. Developing values/virtues-driven Malaysians;
4. Transforming the teaching profession as a profession of choice;
5.Ensuring high-performing school leaders in every school;
6. Decentralising decision-making to solve local problems,
7. Leveraging information, communication and technology to scale up quality learning;
8. Transforming ministry delivery capabilities and capacities;
9. Enhancing partnership with parents, community and the private sector;
10. Maximising student outcomes for every ringgit of investment; and
11. Increasing transparency for direct public accountability.
