You won't hear me praising the Malaysian education system much.

But, when I was in school, they came up with a great idea (in retrospect) to require students to pass a subject called "Integrated Life Skills." In my time, it was taught between Years 7-9 (year 11 being the GCSE year), but I understand it's since been extended to Years 4-9.

Integrated Life Skills included a hodge podge of things relevant to adult life, like:

- Basic cooking (being Asian, this meant fried rice!)

- Woodwork (I made a bookshelf)

- Electrical work (how to safely change a three-pin plug end and so on)

- Electronics (how to solder, the differences between resistors, capacitors, and so on)

- Mechanical work (basics of a 2/4-stroke engine, how to change a tire, how to navigate a toolbox, how to climb a ladder safely)

- Basic accounting

- Consumers' rights

- Basic entrepreneurship

We students laughed off the subject at the time but I'll be damned if some of it didn't rub off on me.