`Lifelong learning essential'

PETALING JAYA: Lifelong learning is recognised as a key component in addressing and solving major global issues.

These matters include illiteracy, ill health, poverty alleviation, social cohesion and inclusion, sustainable development and empowerment of women, said Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, wife of prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

She was delivering a luncheon address at the 15th Malaysian Education Summit 2011, organised by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute, here yesterday.

Speaking on Nurturing The Young Minds -- Building a Foundation for Lifelong Learning, she said the growing interconnections of individuals, communities and societies across the globe, "require us to reinterpret old ways of thinking and doing".

"In these new socio-political-economic contexts, voluntary and self-motivated lifelong learning in pursuit of knowledge have come to be more appreciated than ever before.

"In addition to the various opportunities available for updating one's cognitive, social and creative skills, fundamental to lifelong learning is the capacity to learn, unlearn and relearn as well as the motivation to acquire new knowledge and competencies."

Thus, basic literacy and numeracy skills were prerequisites, she said.

They must also be complemented with skills in information technology, capabilities in information-seeking, reasoning and problem solving, foreign language mastery and a sense of entrepreneurship and passion for learning, Rosmah added.

"All these competencies must be acquired from early childhood.

"Each step in the learning process builds on previous success - from birth right up to adult learning.

"Children are born ready to learn and the family and home environment are central to their socialisation process and the perpetuation of family and spiritual values."

To develop their thinking skills, she said they must be given opportunities to personally interact with the environment and be allowed to construct new knowledge and values based on concrete experiences.

Laying a solid foundation to nurture the children would yield immense future benefits, Rosmah said.

She also said the challenge in inculcating lifelong learning included understanding its significance in formulating education policies, programmes and projects for social and economic development for the 21st century.

She felt the responsibility should not only be borne by the government but should be a collective effort by schools, families, communities, non-governmental organisations and the private sector.