POSITION PAPER 5

NAME: NUR ATIFAH BT AWANG
MATRIC NO: 0813250

“POSITION PAPER 5”
“Counselors are the key to the Success of 1 Malaysia Concept”.

1 Malaysia concept has been introduced by Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak when he was announced as new Malaysia fifth prime minister on 3rd April 2009. That 1 Malaysia, a slogan meant to promote unity and mutual respect as well as trust among the different ethnic communities in Malaysia. According to him, 1 Malaysia concept to all Malaysians as he hoped it would turn the nation into a highly developed one in terms of race relations. Najib added that if Malaysians could truly understand the concept of 1 Malaysia, they could embrace their differences and regard it as unique instead of a source for problems.
It is argued that counselors are the key to the success of 1Malaysia concept. Perhaps it is true that they can be the key to the successful 1 Malaysia concept because they have learned how to communicate and to counsel the clients from diverse and various cultural backgrounds as well as they also have multicultural competency skills. So, they can apply all such skills in schools which are having multicultural students such as Malays, Chinese, Indian, Orang Asli and so on. Thus, the counselors may implement some programs that can involve by different culture students in order to adapt them with 1 Malaysia concept for example Multicultural Awareness Campaign, Multicultural Students Week, Culture Day and many more. In addition, it is also to ensure that they are gaining knowledge about multicultural school environment and outside communities so that they can understand the worldview of one’s own culturally different without negative judgments.
Besides that, counselors can be considered as the key to the success of 1Malaysia concept because they can play their role in developing and building good rapport among multicultural students. To illustrate, in counseling sessions counselors cannot be biased by choosing clients from the same races or same culture only. This is the time for counselors to help 1 Malaysia concept achieves its objective. For instance, counselors can accept the clients from diverse cultural backgrounds in order to build good rapport with them and try as much as they can to listen to the gist of client’s problem. Therefore, clients will feel comfortable and think that they still have someone can listen and share the problem even though they are from different cultural backgrounds or races.
It is argued that counselors are the key to the success of 1Malaysia concept because they can be as liaisons between school communities and outside societies. To illustrate, counselors can be the bridge to connect good relationship between multicultural school communities and outside multicultural societies such as parents in order to adapt them with the concept of 1 Malaysia as such concept can help to harmonize the different cultural societies as well as to guarantee the peaceful among them.
As a conclusion, it can be denied that counselors can be as important part or key to make sure the success of 1Malaysia concept despite they cannot help hundred percents the successful of such concept. Everyone has own opinion or perception to say whether counselors are the key to the successful of 1 Malaysia concept or not. The most important thing is how people play their role and responsible to help 1 Malaysia concept achieves its objective and can be success in harmonizing multicultural societies among Malays, Chinese, Indians and other races.