He said it will review all aspects, including engagement and employment, and announce moves when the time comes.

“The ministry has not made any policy announcements. What happened was my speech at a town hall session in Germany. The report sounded as though the abolition was a policy announcement but, in fact, it is not.

“What I said was in the future, we want to ensure that students are not stuck with the streams, for example, a science student cannot take up literature while some art students want to take science subjects.

“But the report was portrayed as though it was a policy statement,” he told reporters after attending the “Jom Sekolah 2020” campaign at SMK Teluk Kerang here today.

The National Council of Professors (NCP) had advised the government not to be hasty in abolishing the streams.

NCP president Raduan Che Rose said he feared the move would have implications for courses at universities and appeared to contradict the ministry’s move to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.

Maszlee said the ministry had received inputs from various parties in its effort to improve the education system.

He said the abolition of streams was also part of the report of the cabinet policy review committee requested by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

“This is why we are looking at today’s world education trend of cross-sectional learning,” he said.

“What we do know is that over the next 10, 20 or 30 years, many jobs will take place cross-field. For example, agriculture will be agro-technology that requires farmers to be technologically literate. We also know that drones require exposure to digital literacy,” he said.

He said that in the last five years, not many students joined the science stream because it required good results, while arts students may be interested in biology.

“This is a future and a global trend. Whether we want to or not, we need to be prepared for it,” he said.