Monday November 19, 2012

Education blueprint will include students with special needs

GOLD COAST: Students with special needs will be taken into account under the 2013-2025 Malaysian Education Blueprint, said Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

Muhyiddin, who is Education Minister, said the blueprint would include a chapter on such students following feedback obtained after the launch of the preliminary report on the blueprint in September.

“The new chapter spells out in detail how the requirements of this group (special needs children) will be addressed,” he told Malaysian journalists at the end of his nine-day working visit to Australia here yesterday.

On another matter, Muhyiddin said feedback from the Chinese community on the vernacular education system, such as Dong Zhong’s request for remove classes to be retained, would also be considered.

He said a flexible approach would be adopted and that the retention of remove classes would depend on the capability of the students involved.

“It could also be that the students need to attend remove classes for just three or six months and need not wait up to a full year to attain higher proficiency in Bahasa Malaysia (for students from national-type schools). For me, this is not a major issue,” he said.

Earlier on Saturday, Muhyiddin, speaking at a dinner attended by students and Malaysians living in Queensland, urged Malaysian experts working in Australia to return home.

With the diaspora estimated to number about 1.2 million with most of them in Australia, he said their expertise and skills could be harnessed in the nation’s interest.

Malaysian experts abroad were no longer confined to the fields of medicine, accountancy and law as the diaspora was now also involved in other fields such as specialised areas of science, he said, adding that they were also researchers in universities.

“The Malaysian workforce needs more specialists. Malaysia needs you to come home, the country needs your expertise,” he said.

Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, said the transformation plans and programmes undertaken by the Government had opened vast opportunities for the diaspora.

He urged Malaysians who were keen to return and contribute to the growth of the country to get in touch with Talent Corporation Malaysia Bhd (TalentCorp), which was specifically set up by the Government for this purpose. — Bernama

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