Education Minister Maszlee Malik has mooted a decade dedicated to empowering Bahasa Melayu in Malaysia, Southeast Asia, and the world.

"We will launch the National Language Decade to outline a comprehensive plan to make the national language as the main language of choice in Malaysia, among Bahasa Melayu speakers in Asean, and a popular language on the world stage," he said at a ministry monthly gathering in Putrajaya today.

He said the programme will be spearheaded by the Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka, which he hoped would one day reach the level of institutions such as the British Council.

Earlier in his speech, Maszlee also stressed the importance of learning English and a third language such as Mandarin, Tamil, Hindi, or even foreign languages such as Japanese, German or French.

"This will make Malaysians multilingual people. The strength of Malaysians is in our diverse ethnicities and races.

"This diversity is our strength and not an excuse for us to be divided, it can make us far better than the people of other countries," he said.

In his speech, Maszlee also stressed that there must be love in education, not just for teaching and learning, but also between educators, students, and their parents.

This he said, is because there is a deficit of trust between the stakeholders in the education system, which can be remedied through love for one another.