National Philosophy of Education

Introduction In Malaysia, education is a continuous attempt to maximum individual potentials in order to create a physically, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually person who believes in God and firmly hold on to his/her respective religious teachings. In order to achieve the goal, teachers especially, have to play a vital role in educating the students who will be able to perform their duties as responsible citizens. However, there are several challenges that are faced by the nation in producing a ‘good man’ who is balanced in all aspects. Hence, this paper will discuss three challenges towards making National Philosophy of Education (NPE) a reality in the Malaysian society and approaches that are taken in order to make the aspirations a certainty. The challenges are the lack of exposure on Emotional Intelligence (EQ) in classroom, poverty among Malaysian students and negative impacts due to the advancement of technology.

Challenges towards making NPE a reality in the Malaysian society
a) The Lack of Exposure on Emotional Intelligence (EQ) in Classroom EQ as mentions by Bar-On (1997, as cited in Butler, 2006), is an array of noncognitive capabilities, competencies and skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with environment demands and pressures. In Malaysia, based on the NPE, it is the aim of the government to produce individuals who are intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and physically balanced. Now, the question is, is our culture has enough insights to generate citizens who are globally balanced? A project paper entitled Problem-Oriented Project Based Learning in Environmental Management and Technology (2006) states that it is an at present challenge for the universities in Malaysia to produce employable graduates due to the incapability of the examination-based culture to create a conducive learning environment for the students to think critically, to communicate and collaborate effectively. This is due to the fact that many