ACADEMICS welcome the recent move by the Education Ministry to introduce two new courses – philosophy and current issues, and ethics and civilisations – but question whether public universities are ready to deliver effectively given the seemingly rushed implementation.

While supporting Education Minister Maszlee Malik’s decision in principle, Prof Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) said that he’s still “doubtful of the capacity of the courses to produce the desired results in terms of engendering higher order thinking skills” for several reasons.

Citing a lack of preparation as a factor, Fauzi said: “Most, if not all, public universities were caught by surprise. Even students were not told in advance of the changes to the structure and choices of university courses that they had to take.”

Regarding lecturers who used to teach the Islamic civilisation and Asian civilisation (TITAS) course, Fauzi contented that they would not be sufficiently equipped with the skills and knowledge to teach philosophy and civilisation without thorough preparation.

“What will happen instead is that their TITAS teaching template simply transferred to the new courses.

“TITAS itself should have been taught with a civilizational emphasis but it never became so, because our universities never made the effort to produce graduates in civilisation studies.

“As a result, TITAS ended up being taught by mostly ustaz who graduated in Islamic studies, whose experience in education was devoid of philosophical and civilizational content.”

Islamic studies curricula are still dominated by legalistic and theological biases and hence, there emerged so many prejudices during TITAS lessons, said the graduate of philosophy, politics & economics from Oxford University.

He felt that it would have been better to launch it, say, for the 2020-21 academic year.

“This year (2019-20) can be a year of careful preparation of the syllabus and content through workshops and crash courses conducted for all university teachers identified as future teachers of the new courses.

“Involve experts of not only Islamic philosophy and civilization (e.g. Prof Osman Bakar of International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation), but also of other religio-cultural values e.g. Confucianism.

“So, while the trajectory is right, the righteous intent of the move could be threatened by haphazard planning and shortage of intellectual capital that can infuse spirit and vigour into the seemingly jejune subjects of philosophy and civilisation.”

Welcoming the ministry’s efforts, Dr Azmil Tayeb of USM said the two courses are good as they incorporate aspects of critical thinking, logic and ethics and connecting them to contemporary issues and human civilisations.

However, he has his reservation: “Do the universities have the capacity to offer these courses?

“As we are all well aware, no university in Malaysia has a philosophy department nor offer philosophy programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Who then will be teaching these courses?”

He stressed that these courses have to be taught by instructors who are well trained in philosophy, history and politics. In other words, people with liberal arts background.

“Second, who will design the syllabus? Will it be the Education Ministry, the university or the instructors?

“If these concerns are not taken into consideration then I’m afraid it will be pointless to offer these courses. The hastiness in rolling out these two courses will only make a good idea go bad.”

Echoing Azril’s concerns, Haris Zuan of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s Institute of Malaysian and International Studies questioned the approach taken.

While welcoming such introduction, he felt that the suggestion (to introduce the two courses) should have come from the universities concerned and not as a directive from the ministry.

“It goes to show that the ministry not only interferes with the university’s administration, but also teaching syllabi.”

The two courses are generally an excellent idea as philosophy teaches how logic and argument works and develops critical thinking, Universiti Malaya’s social science lecturer Rusaslina Idrus told The Malaysian Insight.

“These are important skills for all students. I hope that the course will not only cover Western and Eastern philosophy, but also introduce indigenous philosophy, for example, how the Orang Asli view their relationship to the environment.

“As for the ethics course, aside for the usual, I hope that it will include discussions on ethics in relation to newer platforms of interactions, such as online and social media spaces.

“It is alarming to see sometimes how conversations escalate very quickly online. There is a lot of harassment, bullying and misogyny that happen in online spaces. 

“People seem to forget there is a real person on the other side.” 

Dr Khoo Ying Hooi of Universiti Malaya hopes that elements, such as human rights, are included in the two new courses.

She, however, felt that the ministry should find ways to overcome the lack of academic staff to teach these courses as well as allow space for students to be critical.

Given the intense focus of universities towards their world or regional ranking, she fears that teaching component might be neglected to some extent.

“To make the delivery of these courses impactful, we also need to review the pedagogy. These courses ideally should not be taught just in the classroom, where students only aim for a passing mark or commonly, to score an ‘A’ as they may be considered as ‘easy’ subjects.” – October 1, 2019.