Moving Backwards with Backward Decisions!

ARCHIVES 2010

By admin-s On Oct 26, 2010

I pity the student population who are being treated like guinea pigs in some horrible experiment gone awry! We have seen so many changes in the education system in the past few years, none of which have truly benefitted the students (except maybe for the short-lived decision wrt the teaching of Maths and Science in English).

By Masterwordsmith

Were we expected to be beaming with joy when Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said HERE that history will be a must-pass subject in Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination from 2013 along with the Bahasa Malaysia subject for students to obtain the SPM certificate?

In his winding-up speech at the 2010 Umno General Assembly, he said that the authorities needed time:

to let the students adjust
to train teachers
to prepare our students to face the new system

He also announced the following changes:

1. From 2014, history would also be made a core subject in primary school under the Primary School Standard Curriculum. Apart from that,the ministry would also make improvements to the subject, with emphasis on enhancing the understanding of the Constitution so as to enlighten students about the country’s nation-building process.

2. The implementation of the school-based assessment system, which would replace the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR), would be brought forward from 2016 to 2014 following calls for the assessment system to be expedited.

3. The UPSR (Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah) examination will be retained but will undergo improvement based on current development.

Frankly, I pity the student population who are being treated like guinea pigs in some horrible experiment gone awry! We have seen so many changes in the education system in the past few years, none of which have truly benefitted the students (except maybe for the short-lived decision wrt the teaching of Maths and Science in English).

Many have taken umbrage to this recent shocking disclosure. What is the ACTUAL AGENDA behind this neuron-challenged decision?

What is the rationale of “enhancing the understanding of the Constitution so as to enlighten students about the country’s nation-building process”? Good heavens! We are talking about school going kids and not law students ok? Aren’t they a wee bit young for such blatant indoctrination?

With deplorable standards in our education system (such as glaring errors in the recent PMR English paper as reported in The Star yesterday), shouldn’t the Ministry of Education enhance the teaching of English, Science and Mathematics to make our youth MORE competitive globally?

Instead, we seem to be moving backwards in time with such backward decisions!!!

On December 7th 2009, Bernama reported that “The curriculum may be revised to make sports compulsory to relive the glory days of sports in schools, said Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.He said the education policy would be revised to give importance to sports as the Education Ministry wanted to produce students, who excel not only in academics but also co-curriculum. “There are many co-curriculum activities. We have sports, clubs, associations and uniform units. I want to change the policy. Sports will be compulsory in schools,” he said at the Sekolah Menengah Tinggi Muar alumni dinner here on Sunday night.

So 10 months or so later, it is goodbye to the emphasis on sports and hello to history!!! WOW!
Many have expressed their outrage at this nightmarish announcement that have left many students with mouths agape!

Tony Pua also questioned this move in The Malaysian Digest HERE where he said:

“Firstly, the underlying rationale behind the move appears to be to “teach” students about the Constitution, and given the announcement of the measure at a Umno national convention, the focus will naturally be on the Article 153 and other related articles with regards to Malay ‘rights’. Malaysian students should however, be taught on all aspects of the Constitution including the Reid Commission report which was the basis of our constitution when it was drafted,” said Pua in a press conference at the Parliament lobby today.

“Will there for example, be an equal emphasis on say, the Article 8 which states that ‘All persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law’ and ‘Except as expressly authorized by this constitution, there shall be no discrimination against citizens on the ground only of religion, race, descent, place of birth or gender in any law or in the appointment to any office or employment under a public authority or in the administration of any law relating to the acquisition, holding or disposition of property or the establishing or carrying on of any trade, business, profession, vocation or employment’,” he added.

Pua expressed fear for, according to him, “this new measure is a blatant attempt to indoctrinate our students with a narrow and biased interpretation of our Federal Constitution and our country’s founding history”.

He called upon Muhyiddin to first convene independent advisory and review body comprising of representatives from the Bar Council, eminent retired judges as well as renowned academics on the history of Malaya.

The second argument Pua brought up was he said the current teaching of History for the various examinations leaves much to be desired. This is because the focus is currently almost entirely based on memorization and regurgitation of facts during examinations and does not at all involve critical thinking, analysis and interpretation.

“In the light of the fact that the (Education) Ministry intends to improve our students’ learning and thinking abilities, the approach used to teach history must first be overhauled before the subject can be made compulsory. Otherwise, history will just become a meaningless subject just like the subject moral studies today where students just memorizes answers word to word to comply with a rigid marking scheme which punishes analytical variants and interpretations. It will only make Malaysian students even more incapable of independent thought,” he said.

“Hence we call upon the Ministry to resolve these two critical issues first and not put the cart before the horse by making the subject compulsory without the necessary reforms,” urged Pua.
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Someone should do an investigation of how many Ministers/Deputy Ministers/Secretaries/MPs/ADUNs send their children to international schools and make the findings public. The data should show the trend over the last 10 years. Now if there are more of them sending their children to international/private schools, it simply means that they have no confidence in their own education policies.

Those in positions of authority MUST set the example by:

1. sending their children to local schools
2. sending their children to local colleges
3. sending their children to local universities

Perhaps then, we can be more certain of the quality of education in our country.