COMMENT | In education, no subjects are useless or irrelevant

COMMENT | The new government under Anwar Ibrahim must abandon the previously popular narrative that focused on dropping useless or “irrelevant” subjects from our education curricula.

Remember a young politician once suggested in 2021, that undergraduates at universities should not have to take irrelevant, compulsory subjects?

According to this politician, law students should not be forced to take a class on Islamic civilisation. Rather such courses, which might also include Malaysian studies, ethnic relations, global affairs, or world religions, should be electives.

While I can agree with this suggestion, I reject the use of the term “irrelevant”. Elective courses are never irrelevant. If they were, why have them as electives in the first place?

Furthermore, the courses mentioned above are most definitely needed in a society like Malaysia, with such a toxic political climate.

To say that any subject in schools or at the university level is “useless” or “irrelevant”, assumes the following....