KUALA LUMPUR: There are three things related to education that policy makers should do now to build a better Malaysia in the coming 5G era.
And it would not cost us a bomb to get it done, said Vincent Chian, who runs a slew of international schools in Malaysia under the Fairview International School brandname.
He added that the name of the game was never money but the will to do so.
Speaking to the New Straits Times, Chian said for starters, we should be teaching coding at an earlier age.
"Currently, Malaysian children are just beginning to dip their fingers into the world of coding at primary 5 and 6. We should learn from the Estonian model, which is now the top scores in Europe under the Program for International Student Assessment ranking".
"Certainly the British and the Japanese have taken a look at the Estonian model, and both countries have made coding a compulsory subject, by fine tuning the model to fit their culture. The children begin at first stage of their primary years life cycle," said Chian.
Further probes into the matter revealed that primary in 2014, England became the first country in the world to mandate teaching coding to children at primary and secondary schools.
Japan made computer programming lessons compulsory in elementary schools since 2020.
"Students start at the age of six in both countries, while in Estonia student are thought at the Kindergarten level about coding without the use of a computer, " Chian pointed out.
The second thing we should do is to make coding an elective exam based subject.
"The Singaporeans have been doing this for nearly half a decade now," Chian said.
Since 2017, Singapore introduced an O-level computing subject for secondary school students, which includes programming in its framework.
Introducing coding at an earlier stage, does not mean that we are setting up all our children to become programmers or work in the information technology sector.
"Coding teaches one to think, analyse and be creative as well help push the evolving usage of technology into the back drop so it becomes a way of life," said Chian.
For those who then want to pursue it as a career, ideally there should be some form of standardised examination-related testing at the secondary education cycle to test their competency.
Chian said the third thing that we should do was to change slightly the mechanism on how we give out the PTPTN loans.
"Why not fine tune PTPTN into an outcome based lender cum aggregator? This will once and for all put a stop to the never ending debate between policy makers and parents are students being thought the right way, should English player a pivotal role."
"Basically what an outcome based lender will do is provide you with a set of metrics that you need to complete weekly through out your university life. Upon graduation, it will give you a guarantee that you will be able to get a job with a certain amount of salary say within 12 months upon graduation.
"If you do not get the job, then the lender will pay you back the entire loan amount plus interest. But if you do get the job, then they are legally entitled to get direct deductions from your salary until the loan is paid."
Chian added that this was actually a win win situation because it would be in the policy makers interest that students who pursue degree or diploma course were future ready for the job market.