CURRICULUM TO FOSTER INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCY MUCH NEEDED, SAYS RAJA NAZRIN SHAH

KUALA LUMPUR, May 30 (Bernama) -- There is a dire need for the development
and implementation of a curriculum to foster intercultural competency in order
to prevent deep misundertstanding that could lead to hostilities.

The Crown Prince of Perak, Raja Nazrin Shah said "intercultural competency
is a skill of approaching others with consideration for and sensitivity towards
diverse cultural contexts."

He said the impetus for such a curriculum emerged from a very practical
goal: to prevent deep misunderstanding that could lead to violent outbursts such
as seen a few years ago over a series of cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad.

"This incident focused worldwide attention not only on the power of images
but also on violence that could result from miscommunication stemming from
narrow perspectives that failed to take into consideration intercultural
contexts," he said.

Raja Nazrin said this in his speech as Malaysia's representative to the
Unesco plenary session on "Education for an Intercultural Citizenship" held in
Vivo Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday.

The text of his speech was released here Sunday.

Raja Nazrin said in developing such a curriculum, teachers, who were at
the same time citizens, needed themselves to be educated to adopt an
intercultural approach that would allow them to engage reflectively, critically
and responsibly with their students.

"Non-governmental organisations can be useful partners to schools for
they would have the practical knowledge of the transformations taking place in
society.

"The media also play an important role for they have the task of filtering
information that is provided and disseminating it responsibly to the general
public.

"Arts and Humanities are obvious subjects particularly suitable for the
development of intercultural competency.

"Music, language, and visual and performing arts are appropriate tools for
increasing the visibility of and developing an acceptance and affinity towards
different cultures.

"We should also look at innovatively employing collaborative digital
technologies such as blogs, myspace, facebook, wikis and so forth, which are
perfectly suited to and readily accepted by students globally," he said.

Raja Nazrin believes that through pedagogical activities involving
cross-cultural and transnational connections, teachers should be able to teach
their students to communicate with multicultural audiences and teach them how
best to negotiate and learn about intercultural perspectives.

"It is only through sharing and continuously striving to learn from each
other can we successfully bridge cultures and build lasting peace," he said.

-- BERNAMA



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