Daim: Education Ministry's misplaced priorities reason Malaysia lagging in industrial leap
BY YISWAREE PALANSAMY
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Tun Daim Zainuddin has bluntly said that Malaysia has failed to grasp the idea and importance of a knowledge-based economy Picture by Ham Abu Bakar |
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 10 ― Malaysia is trailing other countries in the digitisation of industries due to the Education Ministry’s misplaced priorities, Tun Daim Zainuddin wrote today.
In an article for The Edge financial paper, the adviser to Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad bluntly said Malaysia has failed to grasp the idea and importance of a knowledge-based economy.
“To participate in IR 4.0, we must go through a knowledge-based economy and here Malaysia has failed because the government, through the Ministry of Education, has not got it priorities right. The ministry must not fail our nation,” he wrote.
In an article for The Edge financial paper, the adviser to Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad bluntly said Malaysia has failed to grasp the idea and importance of a knowledge-based economy.
“To participate in IR 4.0, we must go through a knowledge-based economy and here Malaysia has failed because the government, through the Ministry of Education, has not got it priorities right. The ministry must not fail our nation,” he wrote.
Daim acknowledged public discontent towards the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition whom he campaigned to put into power.
He said the government’s economic policies are ineffective without a sound education system, noting the “snail’s pace” in educational reform, which he pinned on the ministry helmed by Maszlee Malik.
“We are still arguing over whether we should teach Mathematics and Science in English, when the rest of the world has embarked on advanced curriculums that focus on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0), so as to make their youths more competitive and relevant, in a world that is going to be dominated by artificial intelligence and robotics,” he wrote.
The former two-time finance minister’s caustic statement on educational priorities echo the sentiment by another close friend of Dr Mahathir, Country Heights executive director Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew who urged the Education Ministry to make khat optional instead of compulsory for schools amid public backlash, especially from the non-Malay communities.
He said the government’s economic policies are ineffective without a sound education system, noting the “snail’s pace” in educational reform, which he pinned on the ministry helmed by Maszlee Malik.
“We are still arguing over whether we should teach Mathematics and Science in English, when the rest of the world has embarked on advanced curriculums that focus on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0), so as to make their youths more competitive and relevant, in a world that is going to be dominated by artificial intelligence and robotics,” he wrote.
The former two-time finance minister’s caustic statement on educational priorities echo the sentiment by another close friend of Dr Mahathir, Country Heights executive director Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew who urged the Education Ministry to make khat optional instead of compulsory for schools amid public backlash, especially from the non-Malay communities.
Wait a minute! You were part of the cabal that created and implemented all these unequal policies and implemented them to the extreme. Now are you slapping your own face and admitting you were wrong? Kakakaka what age and remorse catching up? The people you have destroyed are your own. Poetic justice
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