by N K Khoo
Many Malaysia generations are made guinea pigs by our flip-flopping education policies after independence such as teaching medium from English to Malay, 3M, bahasa Malaysia to bahasa Melayu, teaching maths and science in English and vice versa, SRP to UPSR, grading system, etc.
The trend is when a new education minister clinches to this important post, they will propose new policies hastily. No doubt change is constant for us to keep abreast the outside world. But we have to know the problem first before proposing a change of policy or solution.
I have a question to DPM Muhyiddin and his Education Ministry, what are the actual problems in our education system before you simply throw a proposal (a bomb!) to public members.
I and many educationists can propose a hundred possible or plausible solutions to any hypothetical problem, but nobody knows are we addressing the root causes.
The list of problems can be
– Rote learning
– Too examination orientated
– Poor in arithmetic skill
– Poor in English/mother tongue/languages
– No participation in sports and co-curriculum
– Too many grade A scorers
– Too many homeworks
– Too many textbooks
– Too many learning hours
– Too many tuition classes
– Obsolete syllabus
– Poor teaching standards
– Poor in comprehension skill
– Plagiarism
– Lack of analytical skill
– Lack of problem solving skill
– Lack of creativity
– Lack of IT skill
– Malnutrition
– Moral decay
– etc.
Let define the problem, its scope and magnitude first before DPM Muhyiddin proposes something like abolishing UPSR and PMR to rakyat. Such as proposal causing more confusions than solutions by itself.