Innovation
and creativity is one of the change drivers to any developing economy but most
of the time this has always been associated with developed economies. It only
needs changing the mindset that fuels the drivers of innovation and creativity
to tap into this global village. Having
spent most of my time of my further education in the Malaysian System,
first as a student, then a technology professional
in the education sector, I have always asked
myself a question, what has Malaysian Education done that has made it so
popular and successful ? , its upon these meditation that I have deeply engaged
myself over the past years to chart the road to find this answer. I have avoided the temptation of referring to the United States or Europe ranging from United Kingdom,
Sweden, Norway and other European Giants.
I
tend to observe history that most of these European Giants and United States
were far away 50 years ago from us, therefore bench marking them to my beloved
country Uganda that just got independence in the same approximate 50 years ago
is not practical. This takes me down to Asia more specifically to South East
Asia. Did you know when Malaysia attained its independence it was at the same
par with East Africa in terms of economy? Today why is Malaysia so famous in
education? Are we different? Can we attain this? could it be the time to bridge the gap as
Africa is one of the most sought for country for investment at the moment.
Did you know that when Malaysia attained its independence, it was at the same par with East Africa in terms of economy!! Today why is Malaysia so successful as an Education Hub?
They
have 150 nationalities of students in the region. Source: immigration
department, Malaysia 2014.
Did you know about Malaysia's most exciting initiative for the Global Information and Communications technology?
Source:
Multimedia Super Corridor overview,
This initiative defined a path to achieve this successful vision with a variety of applications ranging from Smart School, Electronic Government, Multipurpose Card, Tel-Health, Research and Development?
Bridging the Gap.
Among
the above paths, I was then able to realize what can the Ugandan School do to
get on the path to become more and more successful in its vision, what can our
Ugandan school do to prepare & empower our children/students and their
teachers to benefit from this dynamic information age, this drew my attention
for the past years to appreciate the role of the Smart School Application in
Malaysia’s education system.
Smart School is an exciting flagship
application that has seen a lot of Malaysian Schools capitalize on the power of
technology to achieve their visions, and become more and more successful.
In
the next issue, I will be talking about more about the Smart School & the evolution of the education hub in Malaysia.
