PETALING JAYA: In conjunction with World Children’s Day, educators are urging for more playtime in the early years to help build children’s creativity and confidence following Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek’s proposal to make preschool compulsory from age five.
A 29-year-old secondary school teacher from Petaling Jaya said he has observed clear differences in confidence and creativity between pupils who experienced more play-based learning in their early years and those who began with an academic-based approach.
“Children who went through play-based learning, from my observation, tend to be more outspoken and can think in more diverse ways.
“In contrast, pupils who had an academic-focused start often show more limited creativity, almost a kind of arrested development when it comes to creative thinking.
“In today’s fast-paced world, both academic strength and creativity must go hand in hand in shaping young minds,” he said.
Malaysian Association for Education secretary Hamidi Mookkaiyah Abdullah said giving young children more playtime is a positive move, but meaningful progress will require structural reforms to support play-based learning (PBL) across all school settings.
“We need to embed child development, the pedagogy of play, and play-based assessment into all teacher-training programmes.
“Providing PBL certifications and funding for continuous professional development for current teachers is also crucial,” he said.
Hamidi proposed creating ‘model classrooms’ to show how PBL works in real settings, as it will help schools replicate the approach with confidence.
Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia chairman and co-founder Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim said that, as parents, giving children more playtime in their early years is considered an investment.
“Play allows children to experiment, negotiate, make mistakes and recover, all of which build real-world resilience in a way worksheets simply cannot.
“As parents, we want our children to grow up confident, curious and emotionally secure. So we must trust what research has shown; young children learn best when they are allowed to explore, imagine and move.
“More playtime doesn’t set children back. It sets them up,” she said.
Meanwhile, Voice of the Children president Sharmila Sekaran described the country’s participation at the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child next year as ‘Malaysia’s duty’.
“This is in line with the periodic reporting that every country has to do after signing the Convention of the Rights of the Child, to demonstrate the country’s commitment towards implementing the convention in national policies,” she said.
