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PETALING JAYA: Former education minister Maszlee Malik criticized the head of Umno Youth, Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki, for his claims that the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration intervened in the changes to the content of the history textbooks of Form 4.
Earlier today, Asyraf had urged the Ministry of Education to correct some textbook content that he claimed glorified communists as independence fighters.
He claimed that this was done intentionally by PH when he was in government to “sow the seeds” of the ideology of “Malaysian Malaysia”.
In a lengthy Facebook post, Maszlee told Asyraf to do his research before making such allegations, adding that the Umno man’s claims had no merit.
The Simpang Renggam MP said Asyraf could have chosen to seek clarification from the education ministry directly or from any of the experts involved in compiling the textbook content.
He said the Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Menengah (KSSM) curriculum was introduced in 2017 to replace Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah (KBSM), which had been around since 1989.
He also said that the history curriculum for high schools was revised in 2014 and implemented in 2017 with Form 1 students. “This means that the Form 1 cohort in 2017 would be on Form 4 in 2020.”
“The process of writing a curriculum takes several years and involves a panel of experts with knowledge of history. Once a curriculum is written, it is piloted in real schools to ensure its effectiveness while also gaining input from the teachers implementing the curriculum.
“This means that for textbooks printed in 2019 and used in 2020, the process (of content creation) would have started in 2014 or 2015.
“It is really impossible that PH has done all this in its first year of government,” he said, while noting that the Minister of Education during the formulation of the curriculum was from Umno.
When asked if he would consider taking legal action against Asyraf over his claims, he told the FMT that the backlash against the careless accusations by the Umno Youth chief was more than enough.
In a Facebook post today, Asyraf said that some of the content of the Form 4 history textbook glorified communists as heroes of independence, while there was a section that accused Malaysians of being subordinate to the Japanese colonialists.
“In a subtle and unobtrusive way, the PH government has made the communists and the Malay People’s Anti-Japanese Army look like heroes and independence fighters who deserve recognition,” he said.
Former Deputy Minister of Education Teo Nie Ching also said PH was never involved in the school textbook review process and said it had left the job to the professionals.
Teo said the revision of the curriculum and textbooks began in 2017, with the participation of historians, professors from public universities, history professors, and curriculum officials from the panel of experts on history curricula and books. history text.
