Facing Diversity Towards Wellbeing
FACING DIVERSITY TOWARDS WELLBEING
The Malaysian success story of celebrating diversity is a model envied by the global society. Our educational system and our society’s values have significantly contributed to national harmony. These facts have been deliberated in the following research by the Diversity and Quality Education Group (DQE). (i) Inculcation of Values in Family, School, Community and Media, (ii) The Education System and National Unity (iii) Malaysian Wellbeing Inventory. DQE posits that the challenges faced by Malaysia today is ensuring the equal access to quality education by diverse groups of various physical and mental abilities, lifestyles, values, material abilities and places of living. The model of Malaysian Curriculum and National Unity has been presented to the Ministry of Education.
RESEARCH THAT MAKE IMPACT ON COMMUNITIES
Our group work in smart partnership with various agencies in achieving quality education: Ministry of Education, Ministry of Enterpreneuralship, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Educational institutions around Bangi, the Tengku Ampuan Afzan Endowment Fund, and State Governments all over Malaysia. Collaborations were also set up with overseas partners such as the Institute of Islamic Studies, WASEDA University, Japan, the Sumitomo Foundation, Japan, and ERASMUS Universiti, Netherland.
DQE has implemented projects which give impact for society. Such are i) T-Meta Project ii) Xplorasi iii) Entrepreneurial Module for Poor Society, (iv) Community Counseling (SEKATA) (v) University Community Youth Champion Project. 80,000 students have accessed the online Xplorasi Career Counseling Project since it was launched in 2012. The University Community Project has continuously empowered youth from poor communities to become models and leaders of good values . The group also addresses Special needs population through projects such as (vi)The Use Of Japanese People Paper Folding Art, Origami, In Increasing Learning Skills Among Children With Disabilities (vii) Pencil Holding Tool (Qalamiy) for Special Children (ix) Finishing School for Children in At Risk Areas. Overall, the DQE has impacted at risks young people from the urban poor, the Orang Asli group, special needs population, as well as their families to learn learning skills, living skills, and family skills that inspire and give them hope for better life, wellbeing and harmony.
TOWARDS A COMPETITIVE SYSTEM
Lifelong knowledge transfer and challenges for a more competitive system is also addressed by DQE. (i) Pedagogical Content Knowledge Project resulted in knowledge increment of technical teachers all over Malaysia. Meanwhile there were also projects that helped improved a wellbeing culture in Higher Institutions such as (ii) Psychoeducation Group for International Students (iii) Inculcating Mentoring among Academics Ahli Akademik. (iv) The Government Website Evaluation has involved the society in giving feedback to improve the country’s online information system.
The group’s efforts has been disseminated in literature such Dewan Masyarakat, national and international journals. The group projects have been recognized in various innovation competitions. DQE is accessible at the website : kepelbagaiandanpendidikanberkualiti.wordpress.com.