By Joachim Ng
Sultan of Perak Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah, when opening the second meeting of the 15th Perak State Legislative Assembly in February last year, delivered a forceful point when he said that education “plays a crucial role in reshaping the poverty landscape by lifting people out of the cycle of poverty and improving their quality of life. Therefore, investing in education is investing in the health and prosperity of our people.”
He continued: “We must prioritise the education agenda, particularly for the younger generation, to prevent the perpetuation of poverty and foster upward social mobility within families.” Addressing poverty, he said, included efforts to enhance overall quality of life and provide quality healthcare services.
In both – education and healthcare – Malaysia needs to give topmost priority. One in five Malaysian children under five years are suffering from stunted growth because of malnutrition, data gathered by the National Health and Morbidity Survey in 2019 reveal. The numbers may be higher now as the nation has paid scant attention to proper dieting. One in ten children don’t get breakfast, and 60% don’t have regular breakfast. Only one in ten eat breakfast daily.
These shocking statistics are backed up by the high percentage – 40% – of children under four years old having anaemia which can impact their cognitive development and immunity.The proportion is higher in rural than urban areas, as the numbers of poor rural families are higher than poor urban families.
Studies around the world have produced evidence that children who are malnourished in the womb and during infancy have slower brains that fail to develop properly. From the third trimester in the womb to the second birthday, a million synapses a second are formed in a well-nourished brain, creating the foundation on which all learning, behaviour and health depends. In a malnourished one, fewer connections are created. And if the brain is chronically deprived during this period, the damage is irreversible.
A 2015 American university study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience found that poverty-stricken children had smaller brains than usual and impaired cognitive functioning in such skills as decision-making.
Brain development is gravely hobbled by a lack of micronutrients, the most serious of which are shortage of iron and iodine. Instead of healthy meals, children are given cheap biscuits and crisps which are bad foods.
The Government’s poverty alleviation schemes have obviously been poorly designed as the Department of Statistics Malaysia 2022 poverty reports indicated that 6.2% of households were still living on a monthly income of RM2,589 and below, meaning that 2 million individuals were living in poverty in 2022.
Absolute poverty was defined as a monthly income of RM1,198 and fortunately the percentage living in absolute poverty had declined to 0.2% but the number was visibly large at 64,000 people. Earlier this month the Prime Minister gave cash assistance to the family of a fisherman who earned only RM1,000 per month.
Two-thirds of the poor are rural folks, but in urban centres there are also many poor Indian and Chinese families living in People’s Housing Project (PPR) flats.
If the focus all these decades since Merdeka had been on nutrition for the young, there would be no need for cash handouts perhaps stretching 200 years as the poverty cycle ends if one entire new generation gets healthily fed. China took less than 30 years of successful implementation of a structured child nutrition programme to move everyone above the government-defined poverty line, slightly above the World Bank’s extreme poverty line.
Hence, Malaysia should reshape its poverty alleviation programme into a child nutrition programme. Be inclusive so that no child is left out, no matter whether the child is indigenous, Malay, Indian, Chinese, or Eurasian. When we discuss integration later, it will be made clear why inclusiveness should be mandatory.
A child nutrition programme revolves around free school meals. Qualified food providers must be selected by the Health Ministry with the advice of nutritionists to ensure that healthy breakfast and lunch packs are given to all children in sit-down meals at the school canteen.
Nutritious breakfast and lunch stimulate brain development in addition to nourishing the body. Well fed children find it easier to concentrate and they learn faster. An important side effect is that poverty-stricken parents feel incentivised to ensure their children attend school daily. It’s important that teachers check all schoolbags and confiscate any sweetened foods or fast foods inside.
With improved brain performance, all poor children should do well in school. Education is a parallel step alongside nutrition to propel a new generation on its journey to higher-income levels – the twin muscles for breaking the cycle of poverty. Our national schools and tertiary institutions need a complete overhaul to focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics as well as language skills with proficiency in Bahasa Malaysia and English.
Mastering English, BM, and Mandarin or Tamil at the same time, and perhaps Mandarin and Tamil for the Speedy Gonzales, will make a child’s brain grow phenomenally. A 2012 Swedish university study published in the journal NeuroImage found that students gifted in language skills had greater growth in the hippocampus and an area of the cerebral cortex known as the middle frontal gyrus.
Children are better language learners than adults, as they have an instinct for language learning which fades as the brain ages. To begin trilingual study before age 10 and add a fourth language by age 15 is best.
We should capitalise on our English language inheritance from the British. Those who despise it are still trapped in a colonial mindset. In a study of the 10 most widely used languages in the world that led to the creation of a Power Language Index, English emerged No. 1 and outshined all others in five areas of measurement – knowledge acquisition, economy, communication, diplomacy, and geography. Mandarin came in a poor second with just half the score achieved by English.
Politicians and nationalistic educators who want students to be fluent only in Bahasa Malaysia lack knowledge of the sciences and shouldn’t be leaders of our society. These science-ignorant leaders also prefer segregation to integration as witnessed by the call in 2023 to segregate the hardcore poor from other students by providing special schools for them in the mistaken belief that focusing aid on them without letting others benefit from Government aid will speed up poverty alleviation.
No, it will dramatically slow down the process. Ground research around the world has consistently shown that community integration programmes that allow poor students to mix with the rich, and diverse ethnic or religious segments of society to interact foster collaboration and social networking vital for worklife careers or business advancement.
A diverse learning environment contains a wealth of stimuli that speed up cross-cultural adaptation and wider opportunities for innovative developments that enrich a nation.
Of course, none of these advantages will accrue if the quality of teaching is low. That is the other colossal problem affecting our national schools. The majority of teachers drift into this profession because they have no other job offers. They lack motivation to be competent teachers. This is why you find a steady drift of students into Chinese and Tamil schools as well as private and international schools where the teaching quality and range of subjects as well as extra-curricular activities is far broader.
International schools also dismiss at 2.30pm only. The longer hours are vital so that students can all sit down to a healthy fellowship lunch and have more time for learning. School is the best place for moulding new generations of indigenous, Malays, and non-Malays into a united and collaborative force that propels our nation to the top levels of any world rankings.
And the most conducive environments for such rapid progress are the vernacular schools, the private schools, and the international schools. It’s high time that the national schools catch up – with a complete overhaul of the national school system.
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Ipoh Echo
