KUALA LUMPUR, July 29 — The National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) has no objection to the introduction of khat writing in the Year 4 Bahasa Melayu curriculum at Sekolah Kebangsaan Tamil (SJKT) and Chinese (SJKC) from 2020.

Its secretary-general Harry Tan Huat Hock said the NUTP had informed the Ministry of Education’s Curriculum Development Division (BPK) that the khat writing was not tested as a Language Arts Performance Assessment and in the Bahasa Melayu Skills Assessment other than emphasising that learning khat writing for its aesthetic (beauty) value.

“Thus, the NUTP has no objection to these reasons and the NUTP also considers khat writing could expand students’ knowledge on the types of calligraphy writing in the world such as Western, Eastern and Arabic,” he said in a statement here today.

Elaborating, he said the NUTP had invited the BPK for an engagement session on the introduction of khat writing in 2018 and this year.

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He said the function of khat art to be learned in the Bahasa Melayu curriculum was not different from that of cursive or longhand writing.

Tan said the purpose of the writing introduced in the Bahasa Melayu curriculum was to develop the skills of students to write beautiful writing in various forms while also incorporating aesthetics in writing.

“In this way, it will be able to inculcate fun for the students as teaching and learning (PdP) activities are carried out,” he said.

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He said the BPK had also taken into account the NUTP’s opinion that the writing had nothing to do with specific religious issues or interests. — Bernama