Why character education will fail without hiring the best teachers

Nehru Sathia Moorthy

Let me start by explaining what character and values mean. Character and values form a path towards success and happiness.

You can be amoral and successful. You can have money, power or fame by stealing or killing. But if you succeed through these amoral acts, you will not be happy, successful or fulfilled. Something will always be missing.

On the other hand, if you are a person with character and values, you are likely to be happier and more fulfilled – even if you do not have much wealth nor have achieved much success in life.

Teaching character and values

If one intends to teach character and values and tells students about this, do not expect them to instantly become enriched with character and values because your students may understand your words theoretically, but will not be able to know them meaningfully.

Preaching about character and values is meaningless. It needs to be modelled by real-life individuals.

Until students see a role model with character and values who is happy and at peace with himself or herself and his or her world, they will not be able to understand the implications and the impact upon themselves and the society they live in.  

It is indeed time for this subject of character and values to be more relevant today, to be addressed urgently because of the recent spate of incidents in our schools – from severe bullying to sexual assaults and even murder.

And so, in response, the government has announced it will introduce a new subject called character education, to be implemented in the 2027 school curriculum.

Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek announced that character education will first be introduced at the preschool level next year, forming the core foundation of the new curriculum.

According to her, this initiative is part of a broader effort to strengthen moral values, integrity and virtue among students – a move inspired by public concern over moral decline among the young people.

Will this effort be successful?

I predict that this effort will fail and fail miserably. It will just be a waste of time, energy, effort and money.

We already have moral education, Islamic studies and civic studies in schools. Yet school discipline is declining, and confusion and instances of violence are rising.

It’s easy to teach character and values theoretically. But what is hard is teaching it meaningfully. And to teach them meaningfully, one must embody them.

If you want to raise a generation of people with character and values, you must teach through real life narratives and examples and not through endless sermons.

Decline of teaching profession

People who were in school in the 1950s, 1960s and even the 1970s, often say that students in their time were more disciplined and respectful. Why is that?

Teachers then were the cream of society. The brightest students were sent to teacher training colleges. When they returned, they were admired as community leaders – living examples of virtue and diligence.

They didn’t need to preach about values or character. Their very presence was a moral lesson in character and values. Students naturally wanted to emulate them.

But over the decades, the teaching profession has lost its prestige.

Today, few of our best students aspire to teach. Many become teachers not by choice but because of circumstances.

This is not an insult – many teachers still work tirelessly under difficult conditions – but the system has failed them. When you pay teachers modestly, burden them with bureaucracy, and strip them of respect, you cannot expect the best to join or stay.

And when students do not admire their teachers, they look elsewhere – even at popular influencers who flaunt their wealth online. Even if these influencers are morally hollow, the students’ immature minds will perceive them as more ‘successful’ than their overworked, underpaid teachers.

When young people no longer follow their teachers but imitate the worst of those on social media, the moral compass of the nation begins to spin wildly.

Teachers become alienated from their students. The students are unable to see any relevance in their teachers. In this vacuum, students start following foreign idols who do not have their best interests at heart, leading them nowhere.

The Finnish example

If Malaysia truly wants to fix its education crisis, it should look to Finland — the country that consistently ranks among the top in global education systems and as the world’s happiest nation.

In Finland, teachers make 92% of what a similarly educated professional earns.

This pattern repeats across the happiest nations. Teachers in Denmark (ranked second in the World Happiness Report) earn about 81% of their counterparts’ salaries. In Sweden (fourth happiest), they earn 74%.

It’s not just about the money – it’s about the value placed on teaching. In Finland, 97% of citizens believe that teaching is one of the most valuable professions in society. 

The result? The cream of the crop in Finland is attracted to the teaching profession. The values they have – be it discipline, focus or integrity – are then passed down to the students who will want to emulate them.

In the end, Finnish society is able to create a community with character and values, which allows it to consistently rank among the happiest countries in the world.

Hire the best

If the government is serious about shaping the character of the next generation, it must start by reshaping the teaching profession.

Raise teachers’ salaries significantly to make teaching competitive with other professions. Make teaching among the most respected and competitive professions in the country.

When the best and brightest are drawn into teaching, they will naturally bring with them the habits of excellence – focus, discipline, integrity, resilience and curiosity.

And when these people stand before our children every day, our children will begin to mirror them. Only then will character and values truly take root. Only then will the younger generation learn what it means to be disciplined, hardworking and upright.

And only then will the tragic headlines from our schools begin to fade away.

Nehru Sathia Moorthy follows the Aliran website.

Support our work by making a donation. Tap to download the QR code below and scan this QR code from Gallery by using TnG e-wallet or most banking apps: