27/01/2026

TUESDAY | JAN 27, 2026

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The skills we deleted quietly O NCE upon a time – not medieval times, mind you, just pre-smartphone – children could read an argument – but making an actual phone call? Astaghfirullah . R I N A T E D M A K Sometimes it’s just different opinions, sayang . And boredom… oh, boredom. Once the birthplace of creativity, now completely unacceptable.

the change without even looking. Generational mastery. Ancient wisdom. My son walked away shaken and later informed me that coins are stressful, heavy and unnecessary. He has since requested never to be paid in “noise money” again. This isn’t stupidity; it’s distance. Money is now invisible. Tap, scan, beep; you don’t feel it leave your hand. Which is why budgeting feels abstract, overpaying goes unnoticed and scams work frighteningly well. BUT – and Makcik insists on fairness – this generation is not useless; they are just differently specced. They adapt to new tech at lightning speed and they can learn entire skills from a 90-second video. They have emotional vocabulary we never had; we just cried quietly and moved on. They are socially aware, globally connected and capable of organising movements faster than we can organise a kenduri . So no, they didn’t lose skills because they are lazy; they lost them because the world changed what it rewards. The danger isn’t that they can’t read clocks or count cash; the danger is when systems fail – when batteries die, signals drop and machines glitch – basic human skills are not there to catch the fall. Makcik ’s verdict? These “lost skills” are not obsolete; they are backup systems. And any civilisation that deletes its backups deserves the mild chaos it gets. Now, excuse me while I check my change properly and read the time off the wall – just in case the future forgets again. Azura Abas is the associate editor of theSun. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

Calling is now considered aggressive. In Japan, in Australia or in Malaysia – everywhere – young people would rather walk into the sea than ring someone unexpectedly. “What if they answer?” Yes. That is the point. Mental maths has also taken a sabbatical. RM17.80 plus RM2.20? Calculator. Immediately. The brain refuses to engage. In cafés from London to Kuala Lumpur, phones emerge not to photograph the latte but to confirm that 20 minus 17.80 is, indeed, 2.20. The brain says, “I did not sign up for this.” Reading stamina has collapsed. Three paragraphs in and attention spans evaporate like water on hot pavement. “TL; DR(too long; didn’t read) please.” Long articles are now treated as personal attacks. Globally, publishers are shortening everything, summarising everything, bullet-pointing everything – because if it doesn’t fit between two doomscrolls, it may as well not exist. Fixing small things? Also endangered. Something loose? Call the technician. Something unplugged? Also the technician. Something not working? Restart the phone, restart the router, restart the soul. Troubleshooting has been outsourced to someone else – preferably older and patient. Handling disagreements has become delicate. Someone disagrees politely and suddenly it’s “Why are you attacking me?” Adik , this is a conversation, not Mortal Kombat. Across the world, discomfort is now confused with harm and disagreement is treated like violence.

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analogue clock, count cash without trembling and find their way home using nothing but vibes, landmarks and mild parental fear. Today? Hand a teenager a wall clock and they’ll stare at it like it’s an abstract art piece titled “Why is this not a phone?” Let’s start with the analogue clock – the humble circle with numbers and two hands. Ask a youngster what time it is and they’ll squint like the clock has personally offended them. “Why is it… moving?” they ask. Dik, that is time, not a screensaver. If the phone battery dies, time doesn’t cease to exist; it just becomes… inconveniently analogue. This isn’t a Malaysia-only problem. In the UK, teachers have reported students asking for digital clocks only during exams. In the US, some schools quietly phased out analogue clocks entirely, presumably to preserve the mental health of children traumatised by geometry in motion. Worldwide, time is now only valid if it glows. Navigation has also gone to the dogs. Once upon a time, your mother could give directions like poetry: “ Lepas surau , jumpa pokok besar , belok kiri . Kalau nampak kedai runcit , you’ve gone too far.” Today, Google Maps spins for half a second and the youth immediately spirals. No GPS? No signal? Suddenly they are pilgrims, lost in the wilderness of Subang Jaya. Ah, phone calls… the ancient terror. This generation can send seven-minute voice notes explaining their childhood trauma, their oat milk preference and their entire

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Boredom lasts approximately six seconds before TikTok swoops in like an emotional support animal. Globally, humans have forgotten how to sit with nothing – which is ironic, considering that is where most good ideas used to come from. Now, let’s talk about money – physical money, cash – the thing that smells faintly of wallets and responsibility. Counting money is slowly becoming a heritage skill, like weaving or remembering phone numbers. Youngsters hand over notes with blind faith. Machines are trusted more than eyes. Change is accepted without checking because the screen said “success” and screens never lie, right? I tested this theory using my own child as the research subject. One morning, instead of topping up an app or scanning a QR code, I handed my son his canteen pocket money in a small pouch of coins – actual coins, metallic and noisy – heavy with consequences. He looked at it like I had handed him cursed artefacts. “Mom… what is this?” he asked – not how much is this but what is this. At the school canteen, the pouch was opened and the coins spilled onto the counter like pirate treasure. Fifty sen rolled away with ambition. Twenty sen hid under someone else’s nugget. My son attempted to count, rearranged the coins, recounted, panicked and froze. The Makcik behind the counter watched calmly, reached over, scooped the coins with one hand, counted in two seconds flat and handed back

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“So no, they didn’t lose skills because they are lazy; they lost them because the world changed what it rewards. The danger isn’t that they can’t read clocks or systems fail – when batteries die, signals drop and machines glitch – basic human skills are not there to catch the fall. count cash; the danger is when

A measured reading of Malaysia’s Education Blueprint 2026-2035

afforded all three simultaneously. When reform cycles move faster than cultural adaptation, educators comply outwardly while resisting inwardly, leading to superficial transformation. The blueprint’s orientation towards future skills, digital fluency and artificial intelligence reflects global trends but it also raises equity concerns that are insufficiently interrogated. Exposure to technology does not automatically translate into meaningful learning, particularly when staff training, pedagogical redesign and ethical literacy lag behind infrastructure investment. In higher education especially, there is a danger of mistaking technological adoption for intellectual progress. What the blueprint does well is acknowledge that education cannot be isolated from societal values. However, values cannot be mandated; they must be modelled. This places an unspoken burden on institutions to embody the principles they teach – integrity, inclusivity and critical inquiry within their own governance and cultures. Whether the system is prepared for such introspection remains uncertain. Ultimately, the Education Blueprint 2026– 2035 is neither flawed nor flawless. Its success will depend less on its vision than on its willingness to confront uncomfortable realities: uneven capacity, reform fatigue and the limits of centralised control. After nearly a quarter-century in higher education, one lesson is clear – meaningful reform is not announced; it is negotiated, sustained and lived. R. Murali Rajaratenam

LETTERS

letters@thesundaily.com

HAVING spent close to 24 years within Malaysia’s higher education system, I have seen education blueprints come and go, each framed by sincere intent, aspirational language and promises of transformation. The Education Blueprint 2026–2035 is no exception. What distinguishes it, however, is not its ambition but the assumptions it quietly makes about institutional capacity, cultural readiness and systemic memory. At its core, the blueprint signals a deliberate move away from education as mere credential production towards education as human development, a shift that is long overdue. For decades, universities and schools alike have been trapped in performance optics – rankings, employability statistics and compliance indicators – often at the expense of intellectual curiosity, ethical reasoning and social responsibility. The blueprint’s emphasis on character, values and adaptability acknowledges this imbalance. Yet, intent alone does not dissolve entrenched behaviour. From the vantage point of higher education, one recurring tension stands out: the contradiction between flexibility and control. While the blueprint speaks of holistic learning and contextual responsiveness, it continues to rely on standardised benchmarks and centrally defined indicators of success. Experience suggests that when

At its core, the blueprint signals a deliberate move away from education as mere credential production towards education as human development, a shift that is long overdue. – AMIRUL SYAFIQ/THESUN

implementation fatigue. Educators across schools and universities have lived through successive reforms, often layered atop unresolved structural issues. The blueprint assumes a readiness for change that may not exist uniformly. Change requires time, trust and institutional memory, yet the education sector has rarely been

accountability frameworks remain rigid, institutions respond defensively rather than creatively. Innovation becomes performative – aligned to documentation rather than practice. Without recalibrating how success is measured, the system risks reproducing old habits under new terminology. Another understated challenge lies in