Transitioning: One way Malaysia can emulate the Finnish education model is by adopting an inclusive assessment process, suggests Aija.
Proper ecosystem a must if we are to be rid of exams
MALAYSIA’S move towards abolishing central exams requires an ecosystem that can support its ambitious plans.
The abolishment of mid-year and final exams for Years One, Two and Three pupils, and the subsequent scrapping of the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) and the Form Three Assessment (PT3) recently (see timeline), means that Malaysian students will face their first public exams at the age of 17, when they sit for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM).
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Universiti Malaya Education Faculty senior lecturer and teacher-trainer Assoc Prof Dr Zuwati Hasim said these changes must be viewed objectively and planned properly to ensure that the learning process is not disrupted or obstructed in any way.
“Many stakeholders have argued that it is not possible to implement classroom- or school-based assessments alone as there are no clear guidelines on how these will be conducted, especially when it comes to large classes.
“The existing workload teachers have and the various programmes that schools need to carry out make it even more of a challenge.
“Hence, for classroom assessments to be effectively implemented, the school system and current practices must change – reduce the number of students to 30 per class, relook teachers’ timetables and teaching hours, and stop unnecessary programmes or competitions between schools during teaching hours.
“This is to make full use of the time available for solid teaching and learning activities,” she told StarEdu.
Zuwati: Reduce the number of students to 30 per class, relook teachers’ timetables and teaching hours, and stop unnecessary programmes or competitions between schools during teaching hours.
Other Asian countries such as South Korea and China, she said, are also moving towards less exam-oriented systems that focus more on learning assessments after noticing the advantages of formative assessment in improving knowledge comprehension and mastery.
Action research which helps improve teaching and learning, she added, is in place in schools and the data received from it should be fully utilised to enhance lessons.
This form of research refers to a variety of evaluative, investigative and analytical methods to diagnose problems or weaknesses as a means to help educators develop practical solutions.
“More importantly, we need to understand what teachers can digest from this data and how the data can be used to innovate or develop teaching instruments and materials which can then be woven into the fabric of formative assessment practice.
“The abolishment of the UPSR and the PT3 is a reformation of the existing assessment practice with the aim to improve teaching and learning.“Whether we succeed or not, however, is dependent on our planning and implementation,” she added, while calling for education experts to be included in the reformation process as they would be able assist in developing an in-depth understanding of assessment knowledge and practice.
A former teacher-trainer who only wanted to be known as Manoharan said there is an air of uncertainty over whether the Malaysian education system is prepared to be rid of public exams.The primary concern, he said, is how effective the current assessment system is.
“Sure, streaming for Form Three students has been done away with when they enter Form Four, and there are assessments and psychometric tests in place to assess them.
“But how relevant are these pyschometric tests? Students change as they progress through their educational journey.
“I have seen students who were told they did not have the aptitude for the sciences go on to become doctors,” he shared.
Describing the current classroom-and school-based assessment systems as “weak”, Manoharan said these need to be strengthened and enhanced if public exams are to be completely abolished.
A better monitoring system, too, needs to be in place, he said, adding that teachers themselves aren’t fully clear on how to carry out existing assessments.
“We could look into forming a task force comprising experienced educators to share their expertise.“The ministry must have a foolproof plan in place as to how the classroom- and school-based assessments will be effectively carried out while allowing teachers to maintain their integrity,” he offered.
The Finnish way
The abolishment of the string of exams is seen as a move that follows in the footsteps of the Finnish education system.
In the Nordic country, it is only at the age of 16 that students sit for their first centralised exams, and its system does not practise rankings, comparisons or competition between students.
World Bank Group senior education specialist Dr Aija Rinkinen said one of the cornerstones in developing Finland’s education system is the evolution of teachers’ and students’ roles.
“Teachers’ roles are changing from teaching to guiding and supporting the learning process, while students’ roles are changing from being a passive recipient of knowledge to an active and interactive learner. “This has had effects on all processes on the school level – including student assessment,” she added.
One way Malaysia can emulate the Finnish education model, she shared, is by adopting an inclusive assessment process.
Assessments act as a guide to motivate and inform students, teachers and parents about the progress made in school.
Additionally, the information obtained through assessments, she stressed, are also tools for teachers to adapt their instructions towards a more personalised teaching and learning process, focusing on students’ individual needs.
Aija: Choose suitable methods so that students have the opportunity to demonstrate their competence in different ways.
“Cooperation between the home and school is part of a good assessment culture; parents need to be informed frequently of students’ progress in their learning and growth.
“A comprehensive and versatile assessment is based on data collected by different methods.
“Exams (individual exam, oral exam, group exam, functional exam), outputs (presentations, essays, portfolios, pictorial outputs), interactive work (group work, discussions, drama) and digital methods (videos, audios), as well as self-assessments can be used as a part of the assessment process.
“It is not possible to evaluate all the objectives set with a single evaluation method,” she explained.
If Malaysia is keen on emulating the Finland model, Aija suggested allowing teachers the flexibility in adopting a variety of methods to give students an opportunity to demonstrate their competence in different ways.
Teachers could observe and interact with students during the evaluation process, she said, while gathering information on their progress in different areas of learning and in different learning situations.
They could also create situations where feedback that promotes and motivates learning is given and received through joint discussions.
“In this context, it is important to take into account the different ways students learn and to ensure that there are no obstacles to demonstrating progress and achievement.
“Peer assessments and self-assessments that develop the students’ agency are also important forms of assessment.
“Additionally, when transforming the evaluation culture and methods, we need to think carefully about what is measured,” she added.
A factor that needs to be examined, she shared, is whether schools are measuring what should be measured.
Crucially, educators must ask themselves what they are trying to achieve through these assessments, and a situation of simply measuring what is easy to measure should be avoided.
She believes that at the school level, reforming assessments require the development of teachers’ skills, as well as the autonomy that is favourable to them.
This means teachers’ freedom to choose suitable methods, the ability to take responsibility for the choices they make, and the ability to act as part of the school community.
Often, national level assessments, she said, are used as a gauge of student performance and also to inform the government on how the national education policy is working. “In Finland, however, these two purposes are separate.
“Student assessment in Finland is to give information about the individual student’s learning as an ongoing process.
“For national system development purposes, different methods of evaluation are used.
“This means that the national assessment on the system level is done by research and anonymous sample-based student tests,” she added.
Assessing the things that matter...
WE should no longer rely on exams to assess our students. There must be other ways to effectively evaluate their progress.
The Education Ministry could possibly look into removing other public exams in the system such as the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (STPM) and Sijil Tinggi Agama Malaysia (STAM), and replace these with suitable and appropriate assessments.
There are many skills our students need to learn and master to compete and survive in today’s modern, complex and highly interconnected world, besides focusing on the theoretical and academic aspects of their education.
Among these skills are social and communication skills, technological skills and critical thinking. These cannot be merely taught in the classroom and cannot be assessed through exams.
Ridding our education system of exams entirely could reduce the level of pressure our students face in school because they are constantly pressured to excel in their studies and to score As in their exams.
Those who do not score As feel the pressure of ‘not being smart’, or believing that they can’t succeed in life.
The time has come for Malaysians to change their mindset. The mentality and obsession to score as many As as possible must stop because there are people who succeed despite not excelling in exams. Exams are not the only way to measure and evaluate a student.
The ministry could look into establishing a special committee – consisting of education experts, teachers and relevant non-governmental organisations – to analyse the removal of other public exams.
They could also do a survey among students to ensure that the voice of youths are heard as they are the ones who will face the consequences of whatever action or decision that is made.
Dr Muzaffar Syah Mallow
Associate Professor
Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia
The outcome of education can be subjective. Some would say academic achievement on a subject matter can be the benchmark for success. This, which can be categorised as a cognitive assessment, has been fulfilled through the exam. But cognitive assessments meet just one of three aspects that we are meant to learn.
There is no doubt that the depth of understanding towards a subject can be multi-faceted. Hence, by putting a restrictive emphasis on examining what the learners know, we are overlooking what they feel about the content or how they put what they have learnt into practice.
We may categorise the students’ takeaways in terms of what they feel as ‘socio-emotional’ and what actions they will take as the ‘behavioural’ domains of learning.
Studies have shown that all three domains are important to the development of the individual and that while Malaysian teachers are aware of the benefits of socio-emotional development, they lack the training to implement the intervention in schools.
While Malaysia has taken actionable steps towards promoting transformative education as proposed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), change is slow in happening.
My colleagues and I saw this imbalance play out starkly while conducting a learning activity with a group of visiting students last month.
We wanted students to know about transformative education through the three learning outcomes so we set up a learning activity that combined cognition, emotional response and behaviour.
The students’ responses revealed the traditional emphasis on students’ cognitive development in Malaysia while sacrificing the other two domains.
The brief impression showed us that educational institutions place curricular importance on progressing the students’ cognitive abilities with almost little impact on their socio-emotional and behavioural abilities. The positive implications were made obvious through this study.
Different forms of pedagogy may support the enhancement of a student’s socio-emotional and behavioural learning aspects. Researchers at Universiti Malaya found that school-based assessments (PBS) developed higher success rates for all three dimensions of learning.
PBS was found to be crucial to finding the balance in summative and formative assessments which would promote a more holistic approach.
Another form of practice that we can provide students with is to “teach” other students.
By creating a mentor-mentee system, the mentors, which would be the first batch of students, would get a ‘hands-on’ experience at utilising their learned knowledge, thus achieving an understanding of sustainable development that is ‘full’ and explainable. In doing so, students both as mentors and mentees would attain a more immersive form of education, one which has processes in place for students to pursue deep learning.
If students were taught ‘emotional’ aspects of their subjects, they would have been able to develop the social skills to communicate their learning.
If they were taught adequately to put this skill into practice, we could be looking at unleashing the untapped potential of our students as future leaders.With this, we now see the dire need to include effective systems of teaching to unlock this area of human capital.
Ezekiel Alex George
Intern
United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (Asia Office) hosted by Sunway University
