LOOKING at basic education indicators from 1999 onwards, Malaysia trends upwards in literacy, enrolment and mean years of schooling yet the country still falls behind others in the region in international assessments, a discussion paper published by Khazanah Reasearch Institute in October last year revealed.
The country’s improving performance in basic education indicators, have failed to translate into good performance outcomes in the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study).
Based on our mean years of education, adult literacy rates and net enrolment rate, “Behind the Blackboard: How basic indicators mask gaps in quality of education” suggests that Malaysian students should be well-equipped to rival the performance of the world’s top competitors in education and future outcomes in life.
But the indicators’ optimistic numbers did not translate into concrete results in test performance.
Malaysia’s performance in the TIMSS assessment over the years and across the Asia Pacific region has deteriorated from 1999 until 2011, and only improved slightly in 2015. Compared to other countries, Malaysia consistently does worse. This could be due to the quality of teaching and the level of parental involvement in Malaysia, the authors wrote.
Educationist Gerald Kochappan said Malaysians are not performing as well as they should because their thinking and answering process lacks diversity.
There’s even a tendency for teachers to predict questions and prepare model answers.
High dependence on rote memory, he said, deprives
students of giving creative answers which international assessments give greater weightage to.
He said the Malaysian education system suffers from educators who don’t keep abreast of changing learning and development trends, are unwilling to go the extra mile, and are not diligent in planning and carrying out lessons.
Quality education, said Universiti Malaya’s Faculty of Education senior lecturer and teacher-trainer Dr Zuwati Hasim, happens only if it positively impacts the individual as a learner and a human being.
“We don’t measure quality education by the number of As or CGPA.
“Employers have opened their eyes to the fact that top scorers are not always top performers.
“They don’t just look at academic transcripts now. It’s
also about critical and creative thinking, good attitude and the ability to communicate and socialise.”
These attributes are lacking in most youngsters who despite their excellent academic results, expect to have everything handed to them on a silver platter.
This is detrimental because when they go to university, they’re expected to be independent learners, she said.
Some parents send their children to tuition classes conducted by school teachers – especially those who have been examiners – because they want these teachers to share answering techniques for major exams.
“I’ve been teaching for over 22 years. The quality of our students are deteriorating. Students make a fuss when they’re given reading materials and assignments. The culture of reading is not there anymore.”
Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia (PAGE) chairman Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim said thinking becomes difficult and a chore if students are not conditioned from young.
So, to inculcate a thinking and analytical culture, more higher order thinking skills (HOTS) assessments were introduced into the curriculum.
“The lack of reading is the source of poor performance in schools.
“Since the majority of students have now become monolingual as a result of past education policies, reading materials in Bahasa Melayu have largely been reduced to religion, ghosts and love stories.
“So when international assessments seek HOTS responses, there’s little that our students can contribute.”
According to the World Bank, parents who play a participatory role in their children’s education reflect positively on the overall performance of the school, she said.
Globally, better-educated parents were the most likely to offer help, while 39% of those who had only been educated to primary level gave no help at all.
“So, low education and socio-economic status of parents affect a child’s learning which explains our low achievement in TIMSS and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).”
Malaysian students, argued National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) secretary-general Harry Tan, did not fare badly in TIMMS.
It’s just that others have improved.
“Look at our workforce – we can do all kinds of jobs that require specialised skills and knowledge.
“Our semi-conductor industry has many local engineers; health tourism is flourishing with renowned doctors; we’ve world class tunnelists; our food technology is the best there is; and our country’s progressing rapidly.
“It is just that TIMSS uses norm-based scoring meaning that there is comparison involved. Of course some will do better than others but it doesn’t mean that our students are failures with no prospects in life.”
The question we should be asking, he said, is whether students we produce are unsuitable for the job market.
“While their communicative skills may be lacking, our students have adaptive skills which then make them employable to the extent that job-hopping has become the norm.” - CHRISTINA CHIN
