Country needs educational reform - Anwar

KUALA LUMPUR: The country needs a reform in education that will prevent big problems, especially to the poor generation whether in urban or rural areas.

Opposition Leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, explained it will prevent the country from lagging behind and thus the survival of education to the country, society and the people.

"That is why I have emphasised earlier on the need to ask for the leadership in the ministry to open space for planners to rethink, utilise research and expertise at local universities as well as existing reforms, exposures and developments in the outside world.

"Otherwise we will be lame and degraded in terms of the quality of education, so it becomes another issue.

"I am not very surprised by these new terms because we used to mention the paradigm shift, 60, 50, 40 years ago.

"But it is not this paradigm shift mentioned by the philosopher, Thomas Kuhn. Instead, what we have are a few new papers," he said during the 'Educational Talk: The Neglected Priorities' session on his Facebook page on Monday.

Also present as panelists were former Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik, Senior Lecturer Faculty of Education and Social Sciences of UNISEL Amidi Abdul Manan and retired teacher who is also the founder of The Reading Bus Club Cheli Tamilselvam Nadarajah.

Meanwhile, Anwar said, the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Education do not have coordination with each other.

He said it also makes it difficult to coordinate with the Parents and Teachers Association (PIBG) and the schools.