English Essentials – The Pathway to Holistic Development
Introduction
“Education is like a ticket to enter an arena – the arena of life”.
English Essentials, a bi-monthly publication, is designed and produced with the noble objective to reinvent and transform the mind-set of students in order for them to see the ‘real world’ logically and rationally. It also provides a strong foundation for students to prepare themselves for life’s challenges and experiences, which is highly competitive and demanding. The truth is, these days academic qualifications at all levels and most importantly in the employment market is extremely competitive with ever increasing expectations.
In today’s highly challenging and competitive world even the best academic student is not assured of a place in the job market because the expectations are way above the A’s on paper. Each year, approximately 60,000 graduates are unemployed mainly due to their ignorance of the demands of the job market. Employers expect their workers to be knowledgeable, skillful and competitive. They also want their employees to be fluent in English.
There is an urgency to complement our education system to help prepare our students for both the academic examination and the employment market. The recently released report by Khazanah Research Institute on 2nd September, 2016 highlights the urgency and plight of our graduates. The study by Khazanah on the state of the households in Malaysia revealed that on an average, 24.9% of the graduates are unemployed each year.
Khazanah’s report further notes that the number of people with tertiary education has increased over the years, from one in 16 in 1982 to one in four in 2015. The report states that in 2015, 33.8% of those unemployed had tertiary education, compared with 35.2% in 2014 and 30.6% in 2013.
According to the Tracer Study by the Higher Education Ministry, a quarter of the 254,161 students who graduated in 2015 remained unemployed six months after graduation.
Khazanah says young people aged 20 to 24 years as well as those aged 25 to 29 make up the two largest age cohorts of the unemployed. It further said that the unemployment rate has been steadily rising for the 25 to 29 age group. While it trended below overall unemployment before 2013, unemployment among the 25 to 29 years old has since exceeded the overall unemployment rate, standing at 3.5% in 2015, compared with the national unemployment rate of 3.1%.
The guiding principle of English Essentials is based on Socrates philosophy of examining, questioning and reasoning to build an empire of thoughts that will pave the way to give rise to a student- force that is creative, innovative and imaginative in every aspect of their life. Principle of questioning and reasoning will ultimately lead to intellectual enquires and create thinkers.
Our nation’s survival depends on how we prepare the future generation to be “Globalised Malaysians”, intelligent and progressive. To attain this high level in human capital development, our students must transform to become creative thinkers and attain wisdom in their thoughts. This is only possible if they are avid readers.
Ultimately, our students must be knowledgeable, skillful and competitive to secure a place in this highly competitive world.
In essence, by being a part of English Essentials, it will impart a strong message to students that classroom studies by itself is insufficient to survive in this world and they need to acquire new skills to compete in the arena of life.
The end result of English Essentials would be to produce students who believe in Socrates philosophy of to be an “Empire of Thoughts” that will give rise to the blooming of innovators and creative thinkers. Students would also be made to subscribe to the principle that “Education is like a ticket to enter an arena – the arena of life” andthey are the greatest stakeholders in moving the nation forward in a highly globalised world. To face the challenges of the globalised world students would be moulded to become a “Renaissance Student” who is Knowledgeable, Skillful, Competitive and Fluent in English.
In total, if a student indulges and takes the journey with English Essentials, the student would experience a transformation of mind-set and holistic self-development that will give them the credentials to become a role model who is intelligent and progressive.
With this, there begins the “Dawn of a Journey” that we can be proud of in creating a generation which clearly understands the environment and takes necessary steps to become survivors and champions. The champion must be a student who is patriotic, critical, creative, innovative, imaginative, communicative, and fluent in English Language. English Essentials will produce intelligent and progressive students who will ultimately see the light of wisdom.
We invite you to be part of this journey for the betterment of our great nation – Malaysia.
Thank You.