SHAH ALAM, Nov 16 — Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today called for the creation of numerous cross learning activities at the Education Ministry to further boost the lifelong learning culture.
The Deputy Prime Minister said the effort must be carried out through the sharing of resources whether from the perspective of finance, energy or infrastructure.
“With wise and prudent sharing of resources, we can maximise output and simultaneously minimise implementation costs of life-long learning,” he said when closing the 2013 National-Level Life-long Learning Carnival (My3L) here.
Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, said, through the Blue Ocean strategy which focused on innovation, creativity and productivity, the ministry was able to generate ideas and plan new approaches in exploring opportunities to expand lifelong learning effectively.
He said towards this end, efforts and collaboration between ministries, government agencies and private sector must be enriched through numerous programmes and activities including corporate social responsibility programmes and voluntary services.
Commenting further, Muhyiddin said in order to complete formal education, by 2020, the government targeted to boost participation in lifelong learning to 50 per cent of the populace.
“This is because the existing formal education system cannot accommodate the production of skilled manpower which is greatly needed by the country to achieve high income, developed nation status,” he said, adding that the level of participation in lifelong learning at national level in 2010 was 10 per cent.
He said life long learning was crowned as the third pillar in the human resources development in the country, hand-in-hand with the schooling system and tertiary education.
“It is also capable of providing value-add to society, especially workers who are also critical contributors to national productivity and development,” he said.
He said to date, 15 ministries solidly supported the lifelong learning culture while 32 polytechnics and 86 community colleges offered numerous programmes and activities.
He said cumulative participation in short courses under the Life Long Learning concept at the community colleges since their establishment till last year had exceeded a million people.
Muhyiddin also said there was need to identify learning requirements of residents in urban areas as projections showed 60 per cent of the world’s population would be living in cities by 2030.
Earlier, Muhyiddin had witnessed signing of memorandums of understanding between the Community College Studies Department and four smart partners of the Education Ministry including MMC-Gamuda and Huawei, among others to develop education and training programmes that were mutually beneficial.
He also launched an online directory on Life Long Learning at the same event. — Bernama
