Mohd Safwan Salleh ZGA130009

The Five System Aspirations Unity. The National Education Blueprint is an effort taken by the government in order to improve the national education system. The blueprint was develop with three specific objectives which are first, to understand the current performances and challenges, second, to establish a clear vision and aspirations, and third, to outline a comprehensive transformation programme for the education system. In order to establish the aspiration for education system, the blueprint set up five clear aspirations for the education system as a whole for the next 13 years. The five system aspirations include access, quality, equity, unity and efficiency. Under the unity aspirations, the ministry aspires to create a system where a shared set of experience which includes learning to understand, accept and embrace differences from a range of socio-economic, religious and ethnic background can be built and that it will form the foundation for unity. There is no definitive measure of unity so the ministry will launch an annual student surveys to assess indicators of unity which include the degree of general trust among different ethnic groups, extent of racial and religious tolerance, and social interaction between students of different ethnic group. According to the blueprint, students spend over a quarter of their time in school from the age of 7 17 which make the school in the key position to foster unity. It is like the Malays old saying Melentur buluh biarlah dari rebung the process of fostering the unity value should start from the early age. This is especially important in the primary school level, when the students are at the age of 7 12. This is the time when their minds are still young and pure and they are yet to develop a certain prejudicial thinking towards people from other ethnic background or religion. If the virtues of unity forge into the process of shaping these young minds then the only work left to do is to maintain it when the students get into the secondary school where they are easier to fall under influence of certain prejudicial way of thinking. According to the blueprint, in the primary level, 74% students enrolls in national school (SK) while there still 21% and 3% of students enroll in the National Type Chinese School [SJK(C)] and the National Type Tamil School [SJK(T)] respectively. This homogenous environment make

it less likely for students to receive exposure to students of different cultures and ethnic group which will also make them less likely to develop the respect for diversity that is critical for unity

As stated earlier, the primary school level is an important time to make sure there are enough interactions between students of different socio-economics, ethnic background and religion. Even though there is some convergence in secondary school where most students from the various primary school will enroll in a single secondary school format, the SMK, there will still be cases where students will transfer from SJK(C) to SMJK(C) or to an independent Chinese school, or from an SK to National Religious School, the SMK(A). Through the blueprint, the ministry aims to create opportunities for interactions between students from various ranges of socio-economic, religions and ethnic background. Some of the measures that will be taken includes raising BM proficiency in SJK (C) and (T) to smooth the transition to SMKs, scaling up the RIMUP programme to encourage intergroup friendship through curricular activities, introducing a compulsory community service component in all schools and revising the Islamic Education and Moral Education. According to the blueprint plans, the current system structure will be maintained, so in the primary level, the national type school, SJK(C) and SJK(T) will continue and parents will have the options to send their child to any of the school. Since it is the voice of the majority to maintain the national type school, the ministry will have to focus on other way to expose the students into cross ethnic interactions during the primary level. The vision school was formed in 2003 to promote the idea of interaction between SK, SJK (C) and SJK (T) through the sharing of infrastructures and school compound and facilities. According to the blueprint, vision school can only be established when there is land available to build these shared compounds. This limit the scalability of this concept so only five vision schools right now is still in operation. And without proper activities to trigger the interactions between students, it is hard to see the idea works even if the students shared the same facilities and school compound. Activities like the co-curricular programme in school can encourage great integration between students from different type of school and background. The RIMUP programme is a very good idea since its focuses on encouraging inter-group interactions between students in an outside world setting. It pairs SK and SJK. This programme has a good chance to work since task-

oriented, group activities such as sports and community services are one of the most effective ways to encourage inter-group friendship among students. But there has been a decline in budget allocation for the RIMUP programme, lowering its potential effectiveness at fostering unity among students. This is quite a shame since this is one of the most effective ways to promote unity and interaction especially in the primary level. However, based on the blueprint plans, during Wave 2, the ministry will scale up the RIMUP programme so that every school is able to participate in at least two inter-school activities every year. An inter-group activity however does not necessarily need to start at a bigger scale. The teachers can start it in the classroom itself. During the group work in PnP session for example, the teachers can make sure that the group consist of members that vary in ethnic background instead of letting the students form group that consist only of the friends from their own ethnic. More results can be achieved through the P.E class. Teachers who handle the P.E class should avoid semi-supervised sports activities where the teachers just provide sports equipments and the students will go and play among themselves. What usually happen in multicultural national type secondary school SMK is that, there will be a separation of groups according to sports preferred by certain ethnic background. The Chinese will usually only play basketball among themselves and the Malays and Indian will play football or sepak takraw. A game of football can consist of two teams with members from different ethnic background and through the game they can learn about friendship and teamwork. The unity on the field can lead to the unity outside in the real life. The inculcation of unity should begin in the schools so that we can create a future generation of Malaysians who will be fully aware of the responsibilities towards nation building. Unity and harmony should be a part of our culture and there should be more opportunities for people of diverse races to meet and forge closer friendship and understanding for the sake of the future of our nation.

References: Ministry of Education Malaysia. (2013). The National Education Blueprint. Kuala Lumpur. Ministry of Education Print