By Gayatri Unsworth

I was somewhat confounded and a little bewildered whilst reading a recent Malaysian news report about the country’s readiness and willingness to draw up an educational plan for newborns and toddlers.

The Education Minister, Mahdzir Khalid, who spoke at the Education World Forum in London last week, was quoted as saying that the nation was ready to look into developing curriculum for children aged between zero and three years of age.

If the Minister’s plans come to fruition, Malaysian babies of the future will enter the world with a special syllabus fondly waiting to greet them upon arrival. Because that’s precisely what infants and toddlers in this country are in need of – especially the abandoned ones dumped in the most unimaginable of places and the ones subjected to abuse and neglect.

Perhaps I am missing something (could very well be due to the fact that curriculum for infants did not exist when I was born) but this plan doesn’t quite appear to be one that makes sense, which is in itself highly unusual considering the fact that making sense is precisely what most members of our Cabinet are best known for.

The Minister, in explaining the intention behind the development of the curriculum, cited the United Kingdom as an example, saying that it had a clear roadmap in the early years foundation stage prior to British children gaining entry into preschools.

Mahdzir also stressed the importance of providing high quality and effective interventions in an early childhood setting. These are all salient points and developing a proper early childhood framework is no doubt a very important endeavour but surely it should only come after much more pressing matters facing the youngest members of our society have been adequately dealt it.

Forget education, what about decent childcare?

At present, many newborns, infants and toddlers in Malaysia do not have access to safe, appropriate and well-regulated childcare centres and nurseries. Parents are constantly in a dilemma when it comes to finding care for their offspring due to the severe dearth in the availability of environments that are conducive.
Just a few days ago, a nursery owner, along with her two employees were charged with abusing three of their young charges by keeping their hands and feet bound and mouths gagged whilst under their care. This case is simply the latest in a long list of horror stories to emerge from such establishments.

Over the years, we have bore witness to the numerous tragic deaths and accidents involving very young children due to negligence and abuse by those tasked with the very responsibility of “caring” for them. Many childcare centres and nurseries are overburdened and known to flout the legal recommended ratio of number of children per caregiver.

Many also knowingly employ untrained, unskilled teachers and support staff who have not undergone rigorous background checks to determine their suitability of working with children.

These are just some of the critical issues pertaining to children in the zero to three years age group and I simply fail to see how any could be possibly addressed via the development of a new curriculum.

The finer details of this proposed curriculum have not been made available and as such, it would be unfair to pass commentary on its full content, however, it appears, on the surface at least, to be yet another highly intriguing endeavour by the government to quick-fix an existing shortcoming by creating a new one to conveniently distract from the first.

This would be a little like how Vision 2020 was re-branded last year as the spanking new, National Transformation Programme 2050. Apart from successfully annoying a certain former prime minister, who for some unexplainable reason just isn’t quite sold on the current administration, it also came with the added bonus of an extra 34 years worth of time in which to concoct more ingenious excuses as to why Malaysia (Masih Belum) Boleh.

The existing education system leaves much to be desired

In any case, have we really mastered pre-school, primary, secondary and tertiary education in the country to the extent that we have now confidently decided to extend our expertise to a whole new demographic of Malaysian children gurgling and toddling about, just babbling away for their true potential to be tapped?

It has been often-time insisted by the alternate-fact circle (oh yes, the original chapter was actually established right here in Malaysia, long before Donald Trump started endearing himself to us all with his wonderful, charming hallucinations) that we are world-class and amongst the best when it comes to academia.

The rather unfortunate reality is however, that actually, we are not. And not only are we not world-class, our free-falling academic standards are frighteningly rather far from it.

According to the most recent comprehensive global rankings on education quality and international assessment of students undertaken by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Malaysia ranked 52 out of 72 countries. To rub further salt into the wound, the top five spots were dominated by Asian countries with Singapore coming in at first place.

The prospects of our tertiary students were also not too bright, with 400,000 plus graduates reported as being unemployed last year. The figure is expected to rise in coming years according to former Universiti Malaya vice-chancellor, Prof Ghauth Jasmon.

Time we got our priorities right

So this really does beg the rather obvious question of exactly why we are planning on developing curriculum for infants and tots when we are failing dismally at even doing a half-decent job with the existing curricula?

Whatever the Education Minister’s reasoning may be for the afore-mention intended curriculum, what is certain is that our existing education system is in dire need of attention, not expansion.

Considering the plethora of current issues that are screaming out for urgent intervention, how can we possibly contemplate bringing a whole new age-group of children into an educational environment that is currently in desperate need of repair?

If we are going to spend hard-earned, tax-payer ringgit on any academic pursuit at all, then let us first address and fix the long list of issues that currently plague the existing frameworks, rather than introducing new ones into the fray. Lastly let’s get our priorities in the right order; something we constantly struggle with in this country.

Before we start trying to turn our babies and toddlers into child prodigies, let us first focus on protecting them and keeping them safe.

Gayatri Unsworth is an FMT columnist.

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