THE claim by Education Minister II Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh that Malaysia’s higher education is world class offers a prime opportunity to examine the missing ingredients in the tertiary education formula that are making many people anxious about the country’s future. It would be amusing to poke holes in the minister’s assertion, given the government’s own admission, when launching the New Economic Model, that “the human capital situation in Malaysia is reaching a critical stage”.

However, there is little benefit in adding to the criticism, if not ridicule, that has been heaped on Idris’ view, notwithstanding his lengthy Facebook post of Feb 25 justifying his ambitious label for our higher education standards. It would not help us to focus on the critical issues that are crying to be addressed in the tertiary education field so that future generations of Malaysians can enjoy a high quality of life.

As a reality check, it would be enlightening to find out how many employers have adopted or are considering a practice of not entertaining job applications from local graduates as a result of their extreme frustration over the quality of such applicants.

While we must sympathise with the young job seekers who are encountering formidable barriers to employment due to their poor skills sets, it is more important to confront the problem directly so that the correct remedies are applied to it for the sake of the next generation, who will inherit the troubles that are rooted in our underperforming education system.

Looking at the official prescription for transforming Malaysia’s education outcomes, it is evident that the government has its hands full trying to uplift our talent base to a level that is comparable with that of high income nations.

And while the tertiary education system is the focus of the current debate, the quality issues at the heart of Malaysia’s misadventure in education are rooted in a school system that has proven to be a shocking disappointment.

The well-known underperformance of Malaysian students has been revealed in benchmark tests like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) — where we have fallen into the bottom third for reading, mathematics and science, well below the international and OECD average in all three areas. This stands as a public rebuke of the decline in our educational quality.

Here, it is difficult to resist marvelling at the apparent transformation of our students from virtual dunces in Grade 8 to world-beating scholars when they enter university, under Idris’ proud watch.

The policy measures to correct this embarrassment are precise. As outlined in the 10th Malaysia Plan 2011-2015, the integrated human capital and talent development framework identifies three thrust areas to rectify the core issues that are dragging down our growth trajectory:

• Revamping the education system to significantly raise student outcomes;

• Raising the skills of Malaysians to ensure employability; and

• Reforming the labour market.

Evidently, these thrusts are designed to achieve far-reaching changes in the quality of the Malaysian workforce, but like with so much of our policy initiatives, the million-dollar  question is whether we can make it happen.

What, it must be asked, is missing from this picture that is likely to be fatal to our ambition of creating a skilled workforce that can drive the country towards high income status?

One clue lies in the controversies that have surrounded the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025. While the blueprint aspires to foster national unity through a single national education system that serves all the communities, the reality is that the chasms among the different school systems appear to be only growing.

Where national schools were once a melting pot of Malaysia’s diverse communities, observers rue that racial and religious segregation has become institutionalised in the school system.

It is not surprising that according to the blueprint, the enrolment in national primary schools in 2011 comprised 94% bumiputera, 3% Indian, 1% Chinese and 2% others, while Chinese primary schools comprised 88% Chinese, 9% bumiputera, 2% Indians and 1% others.

Clearly, the attempt to establish a single education stream for the entire country has failed to date because Malaysia is inherently diverse in its demographic composition. As such, vernacular schools have not only survived and even thrived despite getting only 5% of public education funding, while other school systems such as private, religious and international schools have grown in parallel to the national school system.

The reason for this boils down to a crisis of confidence in the quality of our national schools which the blueprint will be hard put to address, given the fractured approach to national identity that lies behind its formulation. Witness the rush by urban parents to enrol their children in private and international schools when the teaching of Science and Maths in English was abolished.

It is evident that an education master plan that does not accommodate the different segments of society and diverse communities in its vision and mission cannot hope to create optimal outcomes for the country’s human capital development goals.

A holistic blueprint would not only acknowledge all components of the national population, it will adopt a diversity to approaches to meet the needs of different demographic streams, taking note of economic status, socio-cultural realities, access to opportunity and enabling factors, for example. Perhaps the National Higher Education Strategic Plan, which is up for public discussion, can chalk a new path towards inclusive and open national development.

So before our universities can dream about becoming world class as the term is ordinarily understood, the drivers of the country’s education agenda must broaden their worldview to recognise that Malaysians of all backgrounds contribute collectively to the nation’s place in the world. After all, we would hope that education opens minds, wouldn’t we?

R B Bhattacharjee is associate editor at The Edge

This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on March 2 - 8 , 2015.

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