Deputy PM Fadillah Yusof champions education reform for crisis resilience at Putrajaya Festival of Ideas, highlighting AI literacy and TVET transformation.
PUTRAJAYA: Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof has endorsed the Putrajaya Festival of Ideas (FOI) 2025 as a crucial platform for advancing education towards a resilient and sustainable future.
He emphasised that true resilience involves anticipating, adapting and transforming during crises, capabilities that education develops through critical thinking, empathy and innovation.
“Education builds that capacity. It cultivates critical thinkers, empathetic citizens and courageous innovators,” Fadillah stated during his speech on the forum’s second day.
He described education as the silent first responder during pandemics, conflicts or climate disasters, with teachers providing stability and institutions driving adaptation.
Fadillah highlighted unprecedented technological transformation driven by artificial intelligence, robotics and quantum innovation reshaping global economies and learning.
The government is embedding AI literacy and digital fluency across Malaysia’s education system to ensure learners master technology rather than serve it.
Malaysia is reimagining education as a lifelong journey through micro-credentials, digital learning pathways and the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Excellence Framework.
TVET is being repositioned as a first-choice pathway and launchpad for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Fadillah called for a New Global Compact for Education to equip humanity to shape the future with wisdom, empathy and courage.
He affirmed that Malaysia’s education reform is guided by the conviction that nation-building begins with mind-building.
The Malaysia MADANI framework serves as the guiding philosophy, harmonising progress with compassion and innovation with inclusion.
Higher education is being positioned as a bridge for peace and cooperation between Global North and South through research partnerships and student mobility.
Fadillah urged nations to shift from aspiration to action and from access to agency, ensuring every learner becomes an architect of solutions.
“Education is more than an investment in human capital; it is an investment in human character,” he concluded, calling for collective action to make education the solution to global crises. – Bernama
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