PM vows to change school syllabus, less focus on religion

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has vowed to change the school syllabus to improve school-leavers’ employability.

Speaking at a dinner for Sultan Abdul Hamid College alumni last night in Kuala Lumpur, the prime minister said he wanted to cut back religious classes.

"We will still study religion but not all periods in one day, maybe one period or two periods.

"But we need to master all the other subjects because if we want to progress, Malaysians must be well educated not only in baca doa (reciting prayers) [...]

"So the school curriculum will be … modified so that now we will have national schools that will teach everybody all the important subjects that will be useful for them (students)," he said.

Sultan Abdul Hamid College in Kedah is the alma mater for Mahathir, former finance minister Daim Zainuddin and first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, among others.

Mahathir told the audience that students today have a poor grasp of English and remarked that the general quality of schools had been "downgraded" over the years.

“It is not that we are less Malay or less Malaysian when we insist on mastering the English language.

“Indeed if you are truly good Malaysians, you would want to impress the world that you have a perfect command of English,” he quipped.  

He also remarked that national schools had presently become "religious schools".

"Someone changed the curriculum in the school, and now the national school has become a religious school.

"They are all learning about the religion of Islam and not learning anything else. And as a result, the graduates or the people who are passing in the school are not very conversant in things that are useful for them to get jobs, but they are very good ulama(religious scholars)," he said.

"And then you have too many ulama; (their teachings) always differ from each other and then they mislead their followers and they quarrel with each other. That is the problem we face now.

"And because of that, we are going to change the timetable, curriculum in the schools," he added. - Mkini