He wrote of the original role of universities of educating young men and women to become good citizens and how the universities have lost the force of their initial vision along the way to commercial viability.
He questioned whether the lack of moral education and care for others have turned perfectly young men and women into monsters that are now creating havoc in the modern world that we now live in as exemplified by the financial collapse world-wide.
He wrote: "In my view, restoration of the right balance between scholarly excellence and its education role requires developing in students a philosophy of life that brings dignity, honor and responsibility to oneself.
"For Malaysia, this means helping them to believe in themselves as individuals, and not to see themselves first as members of any identity group. This simply entails creating community out of diversity. The building of self-understanding and confidence in one’s own principles remains key to the educated person and leader we all want to emerge from our universities.
"In this context, universities have proceeded to redesign curriculum that includes seven basic requirements: (i) more flexible purposeful-course requirements; (ii) written and oral communication; (iii) foreign language; (iv) quantitative skills; (v) basic science; (vi) moral reasoning; and (vii) specialisation."
1 comment:
The views proferred are consistent with the general proposition that you have pushed for in your various series. It is well and good that these views keep being ventilated. The Malaysian policy makers seem to require constant reminders. I wonder why that should be so....
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