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Saturday, November 13, 2010

Malaysian Education System in Emergency

After reflecting my schooling years I have to agree with my friends that those who started school in 1983 with the new KBSR format felt like guinea pigs. I do too!

Then, the standard 5 exams were change to standard 6 with the UPSR format. Well, I thought things were fine until they change the year end school holidays from December to October. We had to start our new school year in December. Remember?

I felt that was really weird starting our school term at the end of the year. HHhmmm. Our Christmas holidays had to be cut short and Christmas was never the same again.

And by that time I had a sense that other sort of changes was coming soon and I dread that. We just had to go thru the motions and study hard while thinking what sort of changes was coming next. I resented that feeling.
Later we were in Form 1 under the KBSM thingy and life went on as usual. The SRP was later replaced by the PMR exams and SPM and STPM so far has not been change.

Recently, our Education Minister DPM Muhyiddin Yasin were` suggesting that UPSR & PMR to be scrapped. The reason is our education system is too exam oriented.

For a start why not the ministry conduct an investigation on our Chinese and some of our Tamil schools. What are their strengths and their methodology. We do not need to go far as the solution to our predicament is only a stone's throw away!

And during the UMNO General Assembly he suggested to make History a passing subject.

Why the sudden rush to change our education system again and again? Does he know what he's doing?

Somehow he doesn't inspire confidence to those who really take education seriously.

It was also DPM Muhyiddin who scap the teaching of Science and Maths in English previously.

Well, for one our young minds are not your guinea pigs anymore. We are not your lab rats that you or UMNO think can experiment with. We had enough of this so called changes that actually doesn't make sense to us at all.

Secondly, the less changes by you people make on our education system is better. I know this is one ministry everyone wants to make a mark for themselves. And Muhyiddin you are of no different.

Any changes has to be backed by a proper study which engages all sections of society. What is so difficult in doing that? Plain lazy or for political expediency? I think we all know the answer!

Thirdly, please stop politicising our education system. After all your brand of politics is rotten to the core and I'm afraid our schools are already becoming a sad reflection of that rotteness.

Imagine the kind of students that is being produced from this type of rotten and failed system. Is our system churning out the best or are we producing the rempits, alongs and gangters all the way?

Instead please spend our country's reseouces to train our teachers and recognize them whoever they are. They are guru to our young minds and their contribution to our nation is priceless. I believe this is one step which is very much lacking today and  DPM Muhyiddin you can make a huge difference by doing so.

Finally, I think we all know what needs to be done in our education system. A total overhaul needs to be executed and it must always start from the head. And I believe we will have that opportunity not very long from now. 

7 comments:

  1. my suggestion scrap away the fill in the blanks go back to the old system of essay type of answers. with the fill in the blanks so many dadus during the exams this will make the student refuse to think

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  2. What to expect: he even said education minister and DPM has no power to take action against problematic headmaster(s)! AND, politic has full control over education system; AND also, politic decision overtakes academic merits.

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  3. yes, proper study needs to be done before any policy is enforced. Making history compulsory was done compulsively without any study; that's from a vision-less end evidence-less leader who spewed a policy impromptu during an UMNO speech.

    Also, there were many implemented policies that were not only failed, but were detrimental to our student. We had "Man and Its Environment" (Alam dan Manusia) -- a hybrid of science and geography -- and yet the teachers who were not proficient in Science, neglected the science content knowledge aspect and concentrated more on geography. Oh, next year, the Ministry is starting to implement KSSR (Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah)and Science and maths (Year 1) will be taught in MALAY.

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  4. When Singapore got its independence they basically left the education system then in place untouched. Their thinking must be "why fix it when it aint broke". They continue to churn out a lot of smart kids. The Malaysian government changed the system of education drastically beginning roughly 4 decades ago.They toyed with it, they experimented with it, they flipped flop on the language medium for science and mathematics, they introduced a two tier marking system (read NEP), and basically screwed up the education system big time.Sure we produced kids with strings of As (quite unheard of in my day), we have public universities with a 98% pass rate, we produce engineers instead of technical assistants by rebranding the Technical college University Technology and we have produced tens of thousands of 'graduates' who are unemployed and who remain unemployable. But kids are kids and they can adapt and a fair number of bright ones with smart parents managed to overcome the system and pursued their tertiary education locally or overseas in institutions of higher learning of repute.

    What can the current Minister of Education do to improve the system which obviously is in shambles? He thinks that making History a compulsory subject is a positive contribution to the system. What a joke.

    A little digression and one little observation. I know a good number of smart Malays and generally they spoke good English. You get my drift?

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  5. There is a saying that sounds like 'kalau tak ada tali, akar pun boleh'. Honestly, how many ministers and for that matter even senior government officers are realy qualified for their jobs? The future of Malaysia cannot be brighter than these so called leaders. Even our chief buys the services of APCO.

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  6. Making "History" a must-pass subject is the biggest joke I've heard in years. Imagine a science student having to pass that along with serious subjects like maths, physics, chemistry etc.

    Ahhh.... I can't wait for the next Education Minister's joke!

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  7. Tinkering with the education system has always been an UMNO pastime. Every education minister gets the uncontrollable urge to mess with it soon after he comes on board. The net result is the unrepairable state we find it in. But in doing this, all these years, there has been a benefit to UMNO: the system has successfully produced hundreds of thousands of sub-standard, damaged goods which continue to fill UMNO's vote bank. A dumbed-down malay population, with little ability to think rationally, critically or just simply think, is its only trump card. Therfore, muhyudin is merely continuing this practice... to ensure that enduring stupidity and its result, unquestioned loyalty to ketuanan melayu, is well preserved. A country that destroys its education system so deliberately and willfully for political gain will meet its inevitable end as a failed state. We are watching a failed state in the making...and that is something which children of the future may learn about when the sad history of this country is written. Tristan.

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