Teach students how govt works to prepare them to vote, says academic

Norazlan Hadi Yaacob, from Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris.

SHAH ALAM: An academic has recommended teaching a standalone subject on patriotism and Malaysia’s government system in schools.

Norazlan Hadi Yaacob, head of the society and nationalism research department at Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, said this would encourage youths to become more politically informed by the time they vote, following a recent constitutional amendment lowering the voting age to 18.

Norazlan hoped the government would consider such an initiative as a General Studies subject was necessary for youths to better understand Malaysia and its government system.

Currently, a general subject teaching students about the national political system is available in Form Six. Certain components are also being taught in Pendidikan Moral and History in schools.

“Simple things (about parliamentary democracy or the Federal Constitution) are taught in our curriculum under a few topics, but they are not comprehensive,” he told reporters after a roundtable discussion on the implications of a lower voting age.

He said the General Studies syllabus taught in Form Six should ideally be taught to Form Five and Form Four students, but under a different name.

“It’s not an issue of a lower voting age. It’s more an issue of teaching Malaysians to love the country. When we achieve this, the responsibility of voting will come naturally.”

However, he acknowledged that changing the curriculum would take a long time, and the education ministry could not introduce a standalone subject now as the existing school curriculum was already dense.

Recently, Parliament passed a bill to amend the Federal Constitution to lower the voting age to 18. All 211 MPs voted in favour and none abstained. The bill also lowered the minimum candidacy age to 18 and introduced automatic voter registration.

The roundtable discussion on the lower voting age, organised by the Darul Ehsan Institute, saw participants questioning the implications of lowering the voting age, including whether youths were politically aware or mature enough to vote once they reach 18 years of age.

New curriculum

Meanwhile, Mohamed Abu Bakar, the director of the Curriculum Development Department at the ministry of education, said designing a new curriculum would take a few years.

However, he said the ministry had already made a few “alignments” to subjects such as Civics and History to better educate students due to the new voting age.

Mohamed Abu Bakar, the director of the Curriculum Development Department at the ministry of education.

“Such alignments were done for Civic Studies last June, whereby the subject is taught more comprehensively and more focus is given to the subject in schools,” he said.

He added that for a future school curriculum, they might take into consideration the need to introduce a standalone general subject or a Democracy Studies subject.

He said the suggestion to have a General Studies subject in Form Four and Form Five could be studied further.

However, he added that his department was most concerned with reducing the number of subjects taught to students in schools. He added that the issue required further feedback from experts and stakeholders, including universities, NGOs and private bodies.

He also said there was a need to consider the overall direction of the country before any final decision on adjustments to the existing school curriculum was made.

Abu Bakar added that they would set up a task force to look into the proper implementation of Civic Studies in schools.

The task force members would be drawn from all departments in the ministry, including state education departments, and a few NGOs. -FMT