The Education Ministry is setting a bad moral example to the young generation of Malaysians as it is not even telling a white lie, but a downright lie, on Malaysia’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 results.

It is indeed shocking that a Ministry which is responsible for the moral upbringing of a young generation of Malaysians should be guilty of such immorality as to try to lie its way out of the shame and ignominy of Malaysia’s exclusion from the results and rankings for mathematics, science and reading in the PISA 2015 Report.

Lets get down to the brass tacks – is the Education deputy director-general Datuk Dr. Amin Senin seriously claiming that the Malaysian government’s assertion that Malaysia’s PISA 2015 results for all three subjects have improved from those of PISA 2012 – i.e. mathematics from 404 to 421, Science from 420 to 422 and Reading from 398 to 414 – is recognised by PISA authorities in OECD?

The answer is an unequivocal “NO”, or Malaysia would not have been excluded from the rankings for mathematics, reading and science in PISA 2015, which appears on Page 44 of the PISA 2015 Results Volume 1 (Excellence and Equity in Education).

Malaysia’s results were mentioned in Annex B of Volume 1, from page 320 to 442, as 9,660 15-year-old students from 230 schools had participated in the PISA 2015 tests, but together with Argentina and Kazakhstan, they were three countries isolated from the main PISA 2015 findings because the data for Malaysia, Argentina and Kazakhstan could not be used for comparison.

The report explained in Annex A4 on page 304, which concerned quality assurance of the data:

“In Malaysia, the Pisa assessment was conducted in accordance with the operational standards and guidelines of the OECD.

“However, the weighted response rate among the initially sampled Malaysian schools (51 percent) falls well short of the standard Pisa response rate of 85 percent.

“Therefore, the results may not be comparable to those of other countries or to results for Malaysia from previous years.”

If the Education Ministry had conducted the PISA 2015 tests efficiently and professionally, why were there data inaccuracies or mistakes which caused Malaysia to be excluded from the PISA 2015 rankings for mathematics, science and reading?

Who were responsible for such data bunglings, inaccuracies and errors, causing the results not “comparable to those of other countries or to results for Malaysia from previous years”?

Instead of coming clean and conducting a full investigation as to who were responsible for these PISA 2015 data bunglings, inaccurancies and errors to the extent that Malaysia was excluded from the PISA 2015 rankings, the Malaysian education authorities pretended that they were only telling “white lies” on the ground that Malaysia’s results were reported in the PISA Report – ignoring the most important fact these results were not recognized by the PISA authorities.

The Education Minister, Datuk Seri Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid cannot remain silent any longer on the great educational chicanery in the country.
He should either own up to the data bungling, inaccuracies and errors which caused the Malaysian results in the PISA 2015 to be derecognized by the PISA authorities, or the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should sack Mahdzir as Education Minister for setting a bad example to an entire generation of young Malaysians in trying to tell a downright lie about Malaysia’s PISA 2015 results.

It is sad and shameful that Malaysians should be bogged down by the question as to whether and why Malaysia had been excluded from PISA 2015 rankings and results, when we should be focusing on why Malaysia is finding it so difficult in improve on our international educational standards while other countries are blazing ahead as education superpowers – like Singapore.

In fact, many of the students in Singapore who sat for the PISA 2015 are probably Malaysians – raising the question why Malaysian students can help ensure Singapore is the No. 1 education power in the world but in Malaysia, the nation is lagging far behind in the international educational assessments.

Even assuming that Malaysian students had achieved the international educational standards as claimed by the Education Ministry, Malaysia has still a long way to go to achieve the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 objective to be above global average and be in top one-third of countries in international educational standards in global assessments like PISA and Trends in Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) in nine years’ time by 2025!

The nine years left for the Malaysian Education Blueprint would involve three more PISAs – PISA 2018, PISA 2022 and PISA 2025.
Can Malaysia achieve the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 objective to be above global average and be in top one-third of countries in international educational standards by 2025?

If Malaysia is to in top one-third of countries in the PISA tests, Malaysia will have to perform better than countries including United States, Austria, France, Sweden, Czech Republic, Spain, Latvia, Russia, Luxembourg, Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, Croatia, Iceland, Israel, Malta, Slovak Republic, Greece, Chile and Bulgaria which are countries in the second one-third ranking of PISA assessments, and better positioned than Malaysia – even going by the Education Ministry’s claims of PISA 2015 results which are not recognized by PISA authorities.

Let Najib answer whether such Malaysian Education Blueprint (MEB) target for Malaysia to be above global average and be in top one-third of countries and international educational standards by 2025 is realistic and achievable, bearing in mind Malaysia’s colossal bungling in PISA 2015, or whether the MEB target on this score should be lowered and amended?