Maszlee: Happiness, love, mutual respect - keys to strengthen education system

Malaysia aspires to strengthen the education system by emphasising on more humanistic and value-driven education with the internalisation of the culture of happiness, love and mutual respect, said Education Minister Maszlee Malik.

He said the three cultures would hopefully create a fun, safe and positive learning environment where the social and emotional wellbeing of the school children are prioritised.

“Part of our efforts to build a value-driven education system include working with others outside the education system.

“Something like social and emotional learning cannot be the responsibility of schools and teachers alone, we are working with parents and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in this effort,” he said in his speech during the Education World Forum 2019 in London. His speech was made available to the local media today.

Speaking on the topic of ‘Social and Emotional Learning and New Developments in Pedagogies', Maszlee was among the 62 speakers from several countries at the three-day forum, starting yesterday.

Other prominent speakers were Azerbaijan Education Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, Gambia Basic and Secondary Education Minister Claudiana Cole, British Council chief executive Ciaran Devane and Education Fast-Forward co-founder Jim Wynn.

Adding further, Maszlee the government was also accelerating efforts to deepen parents’ involvement in educating their children.

“Currently, more than 90 percent of Malaysian schools have parents involved in the majority of school events. Moving forward, we plan to make these contact points more meaningful,” he said.

He also stressed the need for partnership with external stakeholders like NGOs and the private sector which had also been beneficial to the ministry's effort.

Maszlee also said he believed the adoption of digital technologies in education had accelerated the changes in behaviours, values and actions which in turn impacted the way they learn as well as their capacity to learn.

New jargons and terms like big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence are now dominating conversations around education policy, he added.

In the future, Maszlee said, the education work requires key industry players to be more collaborative and creative as well as important for educators to prioritize social and emotional learning among school children.

-- Bernama