The Malaysian Insight

THE education system is dividing today’s generation and is a stumbling block for national unity, said Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin today.

He said unity and education were among the issues that had been highlighted in TN50 dialogues.

“This is something that I don’t know whether we can solve, I would like to solve it but it’s very difficult.

“Because our kids are growing up apart from one another, because they are going to different schools. That is something that we have agreed upon but it is also part of the problem today.

“Whether or not we can rewrite that, I don’t know because this is an old agreement, we have different schools; national schools, Chinese schools, Tamil schools, Tahfiz, we have international and private schools but the end result is that our kids are growing up apart. That’s the big problem for us,” he said in his closing speech at the TN50 dialogue on cashless society with Touch ’n Go in Bangsar.

He said diversity, one of the country’s assets, should be celebrated as it defined Malaysia as a country.

“If you look anywhere, online, the thing that divides us the most is the thing that we should be proud of the most. When we go overseas,we are proud to tell that Malaysia is a multiracial country, multiethnic, multireligious country, so come to my country, it’s truly Asia.

“But when we are here it becomes liability,” he said. – October 10, 2017.