A Short Discussion About Physical and Moral Development of a Country

I never regret that I embarked on the tertiary level of education journey. In this five-year journey, it develops and shapes one's mind to think more rationally, as it broadens our perspectives towards one self, family, and the world. Today, I would like to give my two-cent thoughts about physical and moral development. 

In my dictionary, physical development of a country refers to the advancement of physical infrastructures in a country such as having high-rise building, complete public transportation system, modernised facilities and any other physical developments. Physical developments can be seen and people always judge how developed a country is by the physical development that they have in the country. 

On the other hand, moral development of a country refers to the personal and humane characteristics development of the society or on the smaller scale, an individual. During infancy and adolescents period, moral is developed and learned from the family and the people surrounding. Usually, children are expected to learn moral as a subject starting from primary school. What i found interesting is, in Malaysia, moral as a subject is not learned by all the races. It is being fixed as a subject for non-Muslims students to learn moral while Muslims students would attend religious classes. Does that mean that religious lessons that Muslims students attend cover moral aspects? If that is so, why can't non-Muslims students being given the chance to have their religious classes instead of force learning moral as a subject? A question for you to blend.

Looking from another perspective, parents tend to put the responsibility of children's moral development on the shoulder of the school and teachers. And when there is problem, they can simply put the blame on the school for not developing their children's morality well. Well, in my opinion, parents should also take the responsibility of moral education for their children. Start small. For example, during a day out with children, parents themselves should portray good morality such as do not simply throw rubbish on the floor, always portray a body language that shows that they are ready to listen and talk with their children, use polite and non-vulgar command while interacting, and other actions that portray a good self-image in front of their children. Slowly but surely, the children would be influenced by the good personality of their parents.

While for physical development, I know it is so important to develop our own country in terms of physical development. However, if the leader sole focuses on physical development of the country, while neglecting the moral development of the country, the country is not considered developed at all. For instance, if we have lots of skyscrappers but the citizens are still simply throwing rubbish everywhere on the floor, what kind of image would it portray to the travelers from other countries? A question for you to blend.

If we look into the context of Malaysia, I think that our country is equally striving to develop both physical and moral aspects at the same time. However, there is always rooms for improvement for moral development of a society. Start educating children when they are small, creating a morale and safe surrounding for our children to learn, restrict children's use of internet as most often they learn obscenities from there especially watching low quality videos on video sharing platform.

In a Nutshell
I always think that there should be a balance of physical and moral development of a country. If one country is lack of either one of it, it would not be seen as a "developed" country. Let us all work hand in hand to develop a better country for our next generation.

Thank you for reading. If you have any comments, feel free to join in the discussion below.