“Human values are extremely important in a multicultural country like Malaysia,” said Omar Abdul Rahman, an emeritus professor at UCSI.
Speaking to FMT, he said he was proposing a redefinition of the role of universities to encourage them to play a major role in fostering national integration. He described the proposal as “the idea of a transformational university” that would be in line with the government’s National Transformation 2050 programme.
Omar, who worked for 16 years as a science adviser to former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, said he had noticed that Malaysians were fast losing the human values they used to have.
“One of the reasons is that these values are no longer emphasised in universities,” he said, alleging that the universities did not understand the role they had to play in fostering national unity.
“Those days, students of different races were required to work together in class to complete a project, but today they form racial cliques and thus lose exposure to integration.”
He said the same phenomenon had caused an erosion of patriotism among Malaysians.
“Once a year, people gather at Dataran Merdeka to sing songs and wave flags,” he said. “This isn’t enough to reflect patriotism. Neither would it help improve their sense of belonging to the country. When they go home, everyone will forget about what happened during the celebration.”
He said his vision of the transformation of universities would mean, among other things, the active imparting of human values to students.
“With this understanding, the universities will be able to give back to society and contribute to the country’s economic transformation,” he added.
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