NEW DELHI: Malaysia's Rosmah Mansor has called on Malaysia to nurture its younger generation in order to create a “pillar” for the future. Speaking during an official visit to India with her husband and Prime Minister Najib Razak, Mansor argued that the youth are the future of the world and they should be galvanized to enter society. “We cannot keep producing throngs of scientists when the vacuum is in finance and economics, for instance. Even as there may be a common script of what good talent should be, this script must match the realities of our own countries,” she said. She said that if country's, specifically Malaysia, does not meet the requirements for science and other fields outside business, “it would result in severe shortages” in a number of sectors and make Malaysia unable to compete on a global level. “The pressure to develop the right kind of talent for the right time has become more imminent now,” Mansor said in her keynote address on “Developing Talents for the Future,” she said in Bangalore at the Asia HRD (Human Resource Development) Congress Awards 2012. Mansor said “talents must also be complemented with ethics, discipline and a good value system. “Our challenge and opportunity, therefore, is to nurture talented people who possess good values and ethics such that they are able to utilize and deploy their gifts for the betterment of humanity,” she added. Mansor also cited the Permata Project, which focuses on early childhood education and care as key to developing Malaysia's youth. “Early childhood is the most critical period in human development, and 85 percent of a person's intellect, personality and social skills are developed in the first five years of life. “Children who have quality early childhood education are said to have a better life trajectory. They are not only more successful in the early years but will also be better individuals in their later life,” she said. The Bernama news agency said the Permata Project started in 2007 and “has developed into more then 600 Permata childcare centers in Malaysia and assisted in the development of some 25,000 children from rural areas and the urban poor, irrespective of their religion, race and culture.” She said the education system and other measures must be implemented in order to bolster the upcoming generation. “These are critical skills for future leaders to possess,” she continued.
