I was a victim too, says Maszlee of controversial UUCA

INTERVIEW | Newly-minted Education Minister Maszlee Malik has vowed to help fulfil the Pakatan Harapan manifesto during his tenureship, including the promise to repeal the controversial University and University Colleges Act (UUCA).
An academician himself, he shared his experience of being stifled from speaking in forums and sharing his opinions publicly.
Maszlee, who was sworn in today, was an assistant professor in the International Islamic University Malaysia prior joining Bersatu last March.
"I was a victim of UUCA myself. I cannot speak freely, I was banned. Some of my talks had been cancelled at the eleventh hour. You know, past is past, I do not want to talk about it anymore, let's look to the future.
"It is part of our (Pakatan Harapan) promises to abolish UUCA. As the education minister, I will ask the cabinet to allow me to moot the motion to repeal UUCA," he said in an exclusive interview with Malaysiakini.
When asked about the time frame to repeal the law, Maszlee replied that he will discuss with the cabinet but promised that it will be carried out during his tenure.
"We are going to make it historic. We want to make the whole nation and academia society to celebrate and remember it as the day that changed the nation's history," he added.
In a policy talk by Dr Mahathir Mohamad in March, he explained that it is the right time to repeal because people are more matured now.
"People are more mature and understanding. I think we no longer need this law," referring to the legislation enacted in 1971.
Envisions more humanistic education 
Sitting in the midst of the large crowd of family and friends during the break of fast at his house, the cheerful looking Maszlee poured out his ideals enthusiastically in bringing a more holistic environment for students and teachers alike.
"I will try to bring humanistic elements into our educational system and implementation. You know, happiness, love, mutual respect, all those kinds of things.
"Sometimes those values might not be spelled clearly in any of our documents but they need to be inculcated as part of our culture.
"We are going to further improve the way of teaching and learning. Mahathir said clearly in many of his speeches and when he first intended to become the minister of education, he said that we are going into technology-based teaching and learning.
"I think that's my job. It is my responsibility to pursue what has been mentioned by the prime minister," said Maszlee.

On the general interest from the public particularly about the subject of history in schools, Maszlee pointed out that the purpose of teaching history is to inculcate the humanistic element within.
He elaborated that sometimes there are people who took it as a tool to preach, which is not supposed to be in the first place.
"When we teach, not only Islamic history, we should look into the universal values that we could learn from. There are certain pages of the history that is full of hatred, anger and greed. It should be taught that those were the mistakes that we should not repeat.
"But unfortunately, history has been taught in school as something you need to memorise the numbers, the years and the names which I think is rather boring. I don't like it. Teachers and students don't like it. What is the purpose of teaching history?" asked Maszlee.
Teachers, students trapped in textual culture
Elaborating further, Maszlee hopes to "unshackle" the educators and students from a rather scripted culture in education.
He believes that the human experience is beyond what was written in text and scriptures.
"Somehow we are trapped in textual culture. We tried to look everything based on the text. Everything must be scripted.
"It has to be based deeply on experience, based on how we learn from each other. That is what I mean, I always express with the verse quoted in the Quran, chapter 49 verse 13, that God said that He has created human being and then man and woman, nations, and tribes with the purpose for them to mutually knowing and learning from one another," he explained.
Maszlee also mentioned that every tribe, nation, race and faith have their good qualities and values, for us to learn and exchange with each other.
Unfortunately, he said, when people put all these differences of tribes, nations and faiths as a political identity, we can never learn from one another.

"It is time to make learning more fun, happy and joyful! Students nowadays feel very lazy to go to school because there is no fun going to school." -Mkini