KUALA LUMPUR: It is timely for Malaysia to integrate the Model United Nations (Model UN), an academic simulation of the UN, into its national school system as it could promote critical thinking among the younger generation, a UN official said.
KAMAL MOLTHARA
UN Resident Coordinator for Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, Kamal Malhotra said the programme, which aims to educate participants about civics, current events, effective communication, globalisation and multilateral diplomacy, could benefit the Malaysian school curriculum.
“We in the UN sees that the human right approach is central to everything we do; so if it is to be adopted in the Malaysian school system, it has to be done as part of curriculum reform,” he told Bernama in a recent interview.
For Malaysia, however, there would be challenges because it also had a vernacular school system, he said.
“This works best in a multicultural context where everyone is in one school,” he said, adding that for a start, Malaysia could target the national school system which has students from all ethnic groups.
Kamal said with Malaysia hosting the Second Global Model UN Conference 2010 (GMUN) starting Aug 14, it could promote the Model UN among the young Malaysians.
“In many countries, there is a tradition of holding Model UN conferences at the school level, but this is not the case in Malaysia. Perhaps the students are not too exposed to the UN, even at university level.
“So maybe it is new for Malaysia but I think it is good for both Malaysia and Malaysian students to be exposed to the Model UN because issues on intercultural dialogue are very relevant in the Malaysian context given its multi-ethnicity,” he said.
About 1,000 brightest students from 90 UN members are expected to take part in the GMUN 2010 organised by the UN Department of Public Information, UN Alliance of Civilisations and Commonwealth secretariat and Malaysia’s Youth and Sport Ministry.
Malaysia will be represented by 50 participants at the assembly, themed ‘Towards an Alliance of Civilisations: Bridging Cultures to Achieve Peace and Development’.
The five-day event will see participants aged between 18 and 24, comprising college and university students, deliberating cultural, globalisation and socio-economic issues.
At the end of the assembly, the delegates will pass a resolution which will be tabled to the President of the UN General Assembly.
Kamal said Malaysia’s selection as the host country was relevant taking into account its geographical position and its role as an Islamic country.
“Malaysia sits at the intersection of a number of major blocks of countries as well as playing a key role in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. It has got a key role in Asean and in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM),” he said.
Kamal hoped that the conference could strive to bridge cultural and religious ‘miscommunication and misperception’ as well as several other issues to built a stronger network among the global youth.
The first GMUN was held in Geneva, Switzerland
in August last year.
— Bernama