They say integrating character development throughout schooling could help students navigate social and technological change.
Academician P. Gopala Krishnan said the new curriculum is designed to promote experiential learning rather than isolated values within specific class modules.
“For instance, respect is cultivated through classroom interactions, responsibility through daily routines like cleaning up after meals, and tolerance through group decision-making and queuing.
“This cross-curricular approach is designed to make values a lived experience, woven into the fabric of school life,” he told FMT.
Gopala Krishnan said another key feature of the reform is its emphasis on early and continuous exposure to values education.
From preschool, children will engage in simple, meaningful routines—such as sharing food—to instil foundational values, he said, adding that this developmental approach is more aligned with how children naturally learn and internalise behaviour.
However, he cautioned that without clear structure and accountability, values education could become inconsistent across schools.
He said the absence of dedicated instructional time could result in varied implementation, depending on individual teachers, and make it harder to assess whether students are genuinely learning and practising the intended values.
Youth development and community practitioner Zoel Ng also welcomed the shift, saying the traditional approach to teaching ethics had treated values as content to be memorised rather than lived.
She said in a world shaped by artificial intelligence and rapid technological change, character development could no longer remain abstract or exam-based.
“Merely knowing definitions of respect, empathy or responsibility is insufficient,” she said, adding that students must understand how to apply humanity when engaging with technology and with one another.
Zoel said character development should be embedded in how students collaborate, resolve conflict and relate to differences across classrooms and communities, warning that success would depend heavily on school culture and educators modelling the values themselves.
KP2027 is set to bring major reforms to the national education ecosystem, starting from the early stages of schooling.
Earlier this month, education director-general Azam Ahmad said KP2027 aimed to reposition schools as spaces that foster values, cultivate intellectual discipline and shape students’ personalities, rather than merely places to pursue academic results.
In a Bernama report, Azam, who served as an educator for 24 years before being tasked with leading the education ministry, said values would no longer be taught abstractly or confined to textbook topics. - FMT
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