Ministry to give emphasis on developing student creativity

KUALA LUMPUR: The Education Ministry has been offering Basic Vocational Education (PAV) programmes to students from form one to three throughout the country as well as Upper Secondary Vocational Education (PVMA) starting last year at 269 selected national secondary schools.

Deputy Education Minister Datuk P Kamalanathan said it was part of the government’s plan to produce more highly skilled and competitive manpower.

“Among the strategies implemented were embedding elements of high order thinking skills (KBAT) explicitly in the Standard Curriculum and Interpretation Document for each subject under the Primary School Standard Curriculum (KSSR) and the Secondary School Standard Curriculum (KSSM).

“Apart from that, the ministry also offered subjects based on creativity and technology at upper secondary level. Students could take up subjects such as Technical Communication Graphics, Basic Sustainability, Invention and Computer Science,” he said in reply to an oral question at Dewan Rakyat yesterday.

He was replying to a question by Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin (BN-Kinabatangan) on the ministry’s plan to provide schools with more focus on creativity and technology to ensure Malaysia was capable of producing more highly skilled and competitive manpower.

Kamalanathan said the implementation of subjects which give focus to the concept of basic computational thinking skills would produce students skilled in information technology and communication apart from raising students’ skills on creative and innovative problem solving strategies.