Where is our 'Industry 4.0 educational leadership'?

After a year of governing with promises of radical change for equality, what have we seen in education?

We will continue to see unsolvable issues in education, especially in the Pakatan Harapan government’s goal to sustain a new ideology: Ketuanan Melayu-Islam 2.0. 

We are in need of a new educational direction, mission, vision, and operating principles. That's a basic demand of the post-Industrial Age we think and said we are entering.

Here is the question: Is it really rocket science, that requires a task force lingering for years, to solve the simple problem of certificate of equivalency for university entry?

One that could be solved by merely adding this and that to the syllabus? To establish a quota of university entry based on, at least, the correct composition of the multicultural polity?

UEC and systematic racism

The real issue is race, as you may have already known. Because, for example, in the case of the UEC, it is a "Chinese-Malaysian Examination". Agree? 

We need to stop politicising education, the gentle profession. Unless one is not clear what "Education" means. 

All we know today, still, is race, religion, wealth power and exclusionary politics. Forget about "Reformasi". 

It's all about the fight too, between dynasties, settling old scores, while the rakyat who had high hopes are still salivating for change.

The hopes and aspirations of Malaysian educators of the Merdeka Era are different than that of today's "experts". They made more sense.

I'm now reading narratives of the Brinsford-Kirby teachers on how they view themselves as Malaysians, teachers of a new nation. 

Without the commitment to forging a multicultural Malaysian identity, our Ministry of Education is just another enabler of race-religious hegemony.

Why?

I doubt if the UEC will be recognised by this Harapan regime. It is a race and political issue, unnecessarily. Maybe I am wrong.

There was this interesting invitation for a chat between a Malaysiakini columnist and the education minister. I hope education is about genuine dialogue between the powerful and the powerless. Not defensiveness. 

I like forums and dialogue that create newer understandings, after overcoming limitations of knowledge in one's field. Will anyone who criticises our educational direction gets invited to a live chat? Is this something new, time-wasting policy? Every Malaysian has the right to critique educational direction. For their children's future. Not a politician's failing agenda.

The "Bossku" movement signifies a major shift in Malay-Muslim psyche: Death of moral reasoning. Birth of corruptible soul. 

Antonio Gramsci, a good Italian, would be correct about hegemony if he were to analyse today's Malay society.

Where is responsive leadership?

We expect every Malaysian minister appointed, to know their stuff; from philosophy to practice of daily life of their field. 

A skilled minister will not need a huge "task force" to make decisions on matters simple yet producing profound implications. A minister-thinker will speak from philosophy, not fragments of ideas he or she does not have a foundational grasp of.

We almost have to start anew with any government, educational system, etc. Transitions seem chaotic. Diseased. 

At times I like the idea of Year Zero of anything. Except the Kampuchean Revolution. 

'Structural Adjustment' can be a meaningless word of change in any society that evolves based on class, race, and religion and who should control what. It is not a sustainable system.

The May 2018 regime change was a hopeful moment designed by Humpty Dumpty. The idealists and moralists of yesterday have become the new ones mad hungry for power and wealth, going for the loot. 

When the poor are hungry and when their brain tired, feed them with dreams and nourish them with slogans. Of reformation.

Can we reform a system that needs a new reconstruction through a deep-structuring revolution? Why is it so difficult for Malaysians to have an educational turnaround? And why do we continue to fight over which direction to take? 

Why is it Malaysians continue to be angry at the seemingly slow pace of educational change and the MoE leadership is on the defensive? Isn't the greatest problem in Malaysian education the need to "depolarise society" to define the meaning of progress equality?

Any philosopher of education knows that if you have the wrong GPS you will go in the wrong direction. MoE has announced so many trivialities mistaken as priorities. The real issue is monumental structural changes we need to initiate.

The MoE leadership, I sense, is struggling to define progress and nationalism in this new era of global nativism. People are angry with the MoE leadership simply because they expected changes for their children, as they voted for that.

Rebranded apartheid

I see the apartheid in Malaysian schooling not being mentioned, nor addressed. Maybe because there is no deep analysis being done? Or a denial syndrome at work. Because racial-politics still rules. 

I see no talks by MoE to train teachers to understand the need for cultural awareness and sensitivity in a racist society. I see no solution to the systematic racism happening as it relates to the university matriculation quota issue. It is a political game of inclusion and exclusion all over, rebranded.

I hope there will be less talk on cashless society and other trivialities but more on increasing the child's cognitive abilities. Educational blueprints are not so important as they are merely elegant statements of, at times, nothingness. Show us a new one though. 

Announcing new innovations in education is fine, but we need to see old problems solved first, as top priority. 

We cannot continue to appoint politically-motivated leaders to lead education. Schooling is to create thinkers, not followers. Educational planning can begin with "Backwards Design" via the art and science of Educational Futurism, but not to design a backward society of racism.

Malaysia is a crude-looking-plural-Islamist-capitalist society and sadly, schooling is reflecting and reproducing this. As I maintain in my numerous writings, an educational leader must, first and foremost, be a philosopher well-versed in praxis (thoughtful action designed to change society).

Showing us an educational reform blueprint based on the fine-tuning of an irresponsive system, will not help appease the people. Often, structural changes will not work well, when we need to go back to the drawing board of educational vision and mission. 

At the ground level of teaching and learning, creating good instructional leaders is the top agenda. An educational leader, like an army general and the soldier, must have the experience of being in the trenches. To lead well.

Many career and parachuted politicians get to lead ministries they are clueless about. We can't continue this reward-system.

Are we still a secret government? Secret Council of Eminent People’s report, missing people, secret educational blueprint, secret political dealings?

The way forward

Rather than parroting Finland and Japan meaninglessly, without understanding cultural contexts of educational transfer and borrowing, why not craft a truly Malaysian educational reform ideology?

And why should Islam only be the basis of our educational practice? Bring on the hybridity of cultural philosophies. Why not work on freedom to think and to be respected in class, regardless of race and religion. Why not eliminate any policies and practices that retard the development of talent of any child? 

These are elements of sustainability that need to be nurtured even at the "neural-connections-level" of Malaysian schooling. These are paradigmatic nuts and bolts, in fact, of a successful schooling system across life spans, across cultures. 

Did we not agree, at the onset of Merdeka, to have an independent, progressive, tolerant, and intelligent Malaysian society? The key word is “Malaysia” if we ever forget. Not bumiputera only.

"To engineer the evolution of a truly multicultural, emphatic, responsive, and progressive society". This is missing in our plan and a statement of change in contemporary Malaysia. 

Our politically-charged education will ensure the creation of more racial-religiously divisive society. Unsuitable leadership is driving this social change.

But do we have visionary leadership to engineer yet another cognitive-systemic change?

Or are we now enjoying the fruits of false promises? 

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AZLY RAHMAN is an educator, academic, international columnist, and author of seven books available here. He grew up in Johor Bahru and holds a doctorate in international education development from Columbia University, New York, and Master’s degrees in six areas: education, international affairs, peace studies communication, fiction and non-fiction writing. He is a member of the Kappa Delta Pi International Honour Society in Education. Twitter @azlyrahman. More writings here. - Mkini