credit: Penang Monthly
by Karl Lee
I was recently struck by the news that Malaysians have once again failed to gain admission into Harvard University after the last Malaysian student, Avinaash Subramaniam, was accepted into the prestigious university two years ago.
According to the university’s selection panel chief, Datuk Dr. Goh Cheng Teik, the failure of the applicants to be shortlisted for interviews showed the serious deterioration of the quality of our local students.
At this point, two big questions must to be answered: Are we producing enough secondary school graduates who are considered competitive by international standards? What are the fundamental reasons behind such a setback?
To answer the first question, let us look at the results by the latest Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) 2009+ which was released by Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in December last year. In the study which tested a total of 1.377 million 15-year olds of the ten partner countries to the core Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Malaysia is not only ranked much lower than the OECD countries in reading, mathematics and science performances but also trailed behind a few of the ten countries surveyed in the report.
In terms of reading performance, Malaysia is ranked at 55, far behind those in the countries which our Deputy Prime Minister had recently claimed that our education system is better than─ Germany (19), the US (15) and the UK (25). In addition, the report stated that only 56% of our students are able to possess the level of reading literacy needed for effective participation and productivity in life.
In both science and mathematics, Malaysia is again ranked at 52 and 57 respectively. 57% of our students demonstrated proficiency at least at the baseline level to enable them to participate in life situations involving science and technology. Alarmingly, only 41% of our students were said to have acquired the necessary mathematical skills for their future development.
Worst still, Malaysia has been faring behind Costa Rica, Malta and United Arab Emirates, in all three literacy areas evaluated in the report. Overall, Malaysian students are positioned in the third quartile of the total 74 countries being surveyed.
Translating these results into economic terms, our current students lack the standard skills to effectively compete in this global, market-driven economy relative to their peers in most countries. This is what we, average Malaysians, should be worried about.
Reforming our education policy
credit: Penang Monthly
So what are the reasons behind such deterioration in the quality of our school graduates?
No doubt the government’s mentality in planning and implementing education policy is the main cause to the predicament we are in. The lack of recognition, urgency and innovation among the ruling party’s policymakers in coming out with measures to address the current stalemate in our education system has become the greatest impediment towards positive change of the education policy in our country.
The Najib administration lags behind in education reform. It has been slow in recognizing and solving the lingering problems that continue to affect the healthy developments of our schoolchildren.
Take the recent remark made by the Deputy Prime Minister cum Education Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin on the results of the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2011/2012 released in April earlier. Instead of judging the report in an impartial manner, he jumped into the outright conclusion that we produce more competitive students than some of our counterparts in the advanced countries.
The ‘feel good’ statement clearly represented the reluctance of our policymakers to brace up to the reality that we are actually mired in abundant problems: inequality of access to education between urban and rural students, having significant number of school drop-outs, decreased capacity to acquire the three essential skills of reading, science and mathematics literacy (as evident in the PISA 2009+ report) and falling behind countries such as Thailand and Vietnam in the number of students entering Ivy League universities.
Likewise, the Najib administration’s decision to abolish the PPSMI (the teaching and learning of science and mathematics in English) in July 2009 without prior public feedback and better solutions at hand exerted damage.
While seemingly offering a short-term solution to solve the inequality of literacy rate between rural and poor students, the decision does not take into account the broader negative impact on the proportion of students who can compete with the rest of the world.
What matters most at this juncture is to promptly get our policy right and consistent in order to avoid more future ‘casualties’. The young cohorts that were treated as ‘experimental subjects’ already bear the ill effects of identity crisis.
Last but not least, we are in dire need of an innovative education policy. In contrast to its other policies (such as the 1Malaysia Clinic, 1Malaysia Housing, 1Care for 1Malaysia, etc.), the Najib administration somehow has not injected any creative approach in its education policy.
Instead, the government appeared to stick on decades-long education policy of maintaining the status quo without implementing major reform measures to tackle the socio-economic changes in our society today.
As the inequality of literacy rates between urban and rural students is becoming more pronounced today, the government should consider having two-tier education policy of allowing schools which choose to teach science and mathematics in English to do so; while providing those schools which opt for teaching these subjects in Bahasa Malaysia with a set of measures to evaluate their students’ reading (especially English), science and mathematics performances from time to time.
Furthermore, the government should delegate some of its federal powers in the education ministry to the state governments and local authorities to decide and implement education-related measures attuned to their local conditions. To avoid confusion arising from such complicated policy, effective coordination and support from relevant federal, state and local agencies is needed to implement the necessary educational reform.
Our current education policy is a product of a bygone era when the impact of globalisation was less likely to be felt. In the current environment where states and companies seek advantages over each other, having the right talent often determines the success and failure of these institutions.
Since we cannot prevent our brightest talents from leaving Malaysia to work and migrate overseas, we should treat our younger generation as national treasures and spare no effort to equip them with the necessary skills to excel in this challenging world. In a decade’s time, they will be our best hope for a high-income Malaysia. –The Rocket
