Muhyiddin: Let nation’s history be inspiration for development

ALOR STAR, Aug 24 — Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today said the history of the country should be well researched and its content should be the inspiration for development in all fields, such as architecture, arts, education, sports, science and engineering.

Muhyiddin, who is also the Education Minister and Malaysian Historical Society vice-president, said the subject that the modernisation should be leveraged as a push factor to ensure ‘history’ as a discipline remained to be relevant, if not increased in values and demand.

He said there was a need for reviewing and reorienting the pedagogy of the subject into a live ‘subject’ with an approach that emphasized on the grand statement that ‘the future lies in the past’.

“While history is already a compulsory subject for students of social science, very often historians teach the subject as a subject of the ‘past’, about the ‘past’ and for the ‘past’.

“Consequently, history is not perceived as having values in the current fast moving, dynamic and vibrant society. Thus, students for example, do not see the ‘future’ of the subject,” he said at the opening of the 23^rd Conference of the International Association of Historian of Asia here today.

Muhyiddin said, as such, universities might need to look at the possibility of embedding programmes that would allow students and citizens in general to understand and appreciate history by either strengthening and enhancing the existing social science and liberal arts programmes or introducing new related programmes, such as philosophy.

“History should be not only an academic career, but also one that is able to serve national life, this reaffirmation of the importance of history is being undertaken in the context of comprehensive review of the Malaysian education system,” he added.

The five-day conference, which began yesterday, is being organised by Universiti Utara Malaysia and Malaysian Historical Society.

Among the participants are historians from Brazil, Brunei, Bangladesh, South Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Japan.  — Bernama