Our education system is a disaster
The writer expresses his concern about our education system by highlighting a letter a student wrote to him which is littered with errors.
Koon Yew Yin, Free Malaysia Today
Recently, I received an urgent note from a student who is doing matriculation in a government school in Kedah where tuition and accommodation costs are covered by the state. I have been helping her with financial assistance for food and miscellaneous expenses since her father is unemployed and she is a deserving student from the poorer class.
Her letter reads as follows:
hi sir it’s me …. sorry for disturbing sir. sir i want to ask sir something. sir i really need sir’s help. sir if can sir can bank in some of the money before i further my studies in matriculation.
sir i need to buy something as preparation to further my studies in matriculation sir. so please help me sir. i really dont know who to ask help. that why i am asking sir’s help. please sir. i hope sir can help me because i dont know who to ask. sir i hope sir can understand me and give me some support. thank you sir. i hope sir will reply my letter as soon as possible. thank you a lot sir.
I have shared this letter with friends not simply to provide an example of the extent of financial desperation and needs that hundreds of thousands of poor students in our country face every day in their lives.
I am also sharing it to show my concern for the standard of English proficiency of our younger generation who are going to colleges and universities. This is not an isolated example. I am sad to say that the overwhelming majority of the students that I am presently supporting have equally low standards in the English language.
These students represent the better ones among their classmates in school. I shudder to think what the standard of English proficiency is among average students in our secondary schools.
How are these students, when they pass through college or university, able to compete in an increasingly globalised employment market? How are they going to function in the private sector or the business world when they cannot express themselves in basic English? And what is the quality of the service or communication they will provide when they eventually find jobs?
The main culprit in this phenomenon, where the present younger generation are unable to communicate in simple English without making grammatical mistakes, is the government.
The Barisan Nasional has been in power for over 50 years and, sorry to say, it has put the country’s educational system in the drain!
The Ministry of Education has been the biggest ministry for a long time and receives one of the largest if not largest budget. But it appears as if donkeys and meter readers are in charge of the Ministry. Millions of students pass through our national education system and many receive high grades and the Ministry’s stamp of approval. The standard of education, however, is so low that these students are virtually unemployable despite their impressive certificates.
And this is why I fear the worse for the present batch of students that others and I have supported! Poor and deserving yes; but they have been screwed up by our rotten education system.
