"We need to do a total overhaul. Out there, the people are impatient and we need to do this urgently, or else we won't reach our goals," Mustapa said at a forum to commemorate the third anniversary of the Economic Transformation Programme today.
Echoing a report by the World Bank on Malaysia's poor quality of education, he said unfortunately, the National Education Blueprint, meant to address this, would take a while to produce results.
"But this will take time so there are now programmes through Talent Corp, government-linked companies and Bank Negara Malaysia that have been put in place.
"But we need to bridge the gap (between available skills and industry needs). In the long run, we need to reform education," Mustapha said.
The World Bank in a report last week said that while there is higher enrollment in schools, schooling in Malaysia not translating into learning.
It said that Malaysian students performed worse compared to regional peers in international tests, falling behind the likes of Vietnam.
The poor quality of education, it added, would undermine Malaysia's efforts a become a high income economy - a goal Malaysia is aiming to reach in six years.
Blueprint will bear fruit in 20 years
Commenting on the matter at the forum, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Idris Jala said that educational reform needs tremendous work and there is no shortcut.
"There are 400,000 teachers we have to upgrade. If anyone who says that they can fix the education system over one or two years, that guy is lying," he said.
Idris (right)
said the government is doing a lot to raise the quality of education,
including providing evening classes for English Language teachers, 70
percent of whom did not do well on the English Language Cambridge
Placement Test last year.Despite Malaysia's goal to be a high income nation by 2020, he said the National Education Blueprint will only start bearing fruit in 20 years time.
"In 50 years from now, if we don't up our game in education, we will be overtaken by countries who run faster than us. In the long-term, the agenda for poverty eradication, is education," he said.
Meanwhile, Idris, who was appointed senator so he can run the Performance and Management Delivery Unit (Pemandu) called on both Pakatan Rakyat and the BN to stop politicising education.
"Wahid and I are not politicians. If there is one thing we...hope for both the BN and Pakatan Rakyat, it is to lay down their swords and not to politicise education. Come together and agree about education," he said.
He was referring to Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of economic matters, Abdul Wahid Omar, who was also a panellist at the forum.
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