First and foremost, I would like to congratulate the new Education Minister designate Dr Maszlee Malik on his appointment into the cabinet and we are looking forward to work closer with him and his ministry in our aim to reform our education system in the country.
I had an informal meeting with him over the weekend to raise some important issues especially certain educational reforms that is needed, especially to highlight the richness of history Sabah and Sarawak has that is currently not properly highlighted under the current education syllabus.
One of the important issues brought up to the new Education Minister designate is the need for more inclusion of the important roles played by Sabah and Sarawakian leaders especially in the formation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963 in our History syllabus. Currently, it is more Malaya-centric and does give the impression that the birth of our country was mainly the doing of Malaya’s leaders only.
This of course needs to be reformed as the roles played by the leaders from Sabah and Sarawak as well as Singapore towards the creation of Malaysia are not properly highlighted. Besides that, education on the importance of the Malaysian Agreement 1963 and the special rights and status we enjoy is barely taught in schools. I also believe that emphasis also need to be given to the education of how the different religions came to flourish in both East Malaysian states, giving a more correct representation of the lifestyle and sociological makeup in these 2 regions.
One of the important steps in regaining back our rights under the Malaysian Agreement 1963(MA63) is to reform the education system so that the people of Malaysia are made aware of such rights and how it came about in the first place. Sarawakians and Sabahan children should also grow up knowing of the sacrifices and battle fought by our founding forefathers in order to properly appreciate the special rights afforded to our region. This will also allow our West Malaysian counterparts to better understand rather than having a misconception of the cause that we are pursuing,
That is why it is an issue that we will further pursue strongly and follow up with the relevant ministries. We strongly believe in greater national integration and the best way to do that is to build such integration upon accurate historical facts and a better representation of the roles played by Sabah and Sarawak in the formation of Malaysia.
Other reforms that were mentioned including the new Education Minister’s plans to inject new methods into our education system, shifting the focus away from ranking and examinations. The other is also the need to allow the teachers to focus on teaching more rather than be burdened down by more administrative and clerical work.
Pakatan Harapan is sincere and consistent in our promise to bring the needed reforms to uphold the rights of all Malaysians including the people from Sabah & Sarawak. We will keep pursuing what is good for the people and uphold the promise that we made.