From Malaysia Today

By Terrence Netto

Education is the race between civilization and oblivion, said Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in wide ranging remarks that virtually paraphrased H. G. Wells, the British futuristic writer, who once described education as the race between civilization and catastrophe.

While not comparably apocalyptic in tone, the PKR supremo, in recent speeches in the Dewan Rakyat on the Budget estimates on education and on amendments to the University and University Colleges Act, looked through our educational glass and felt impelled to report darkly.

“Our slumping economic fortunes are traceable to the recession in our education quality,” he said. “We are a nation at risk,” he cautioned.

Anwar saw as indivisible the link between educational quality and economic competitiveness.

“Our competitors in the region, once flailing in our wake, have caught up and are now ahead of us. We have lost our once frontal position in the region in commerce, industry, science and technological innovation,” said Anwar.
He cited several indices of decline such as the annual survey by the Times Higher Educational Supplement which saw our premier University Malaya fluctuating in the nether regions, if not actually bundled out of the publication’s annual top 200 classification. Anwar also quoted from studies and comments made about Malaysian education over two decades, including a survey done in 1983. All of them, he claimed, flagged the declension in our educational standards.

Continue reading ‘In remarks ignored by the mainstream media, Anwar flags the malady in Malaysian higher education quality.’