Ministry: PT3 not be-all and end-all

PETALING JAYA: Form Three students’ chances of getting into residential schools will not solely depend on their Pentaksiran Tingkatan 3 (PT3) results.

Education director-general Datuk Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof said the PT3 was just one of the four assessments under the overall school-based assessment (PBS) system.

“The PT3 results will not affect students’ entry to residential schools and to the science or arts streams.

“Selection to these streams are not just based on the PT3 results, as all four components of the PBS are taken into account.”

The other three components of the PBS are school assessment; assessment of physical, sports and co-curricular activities; and psychometric assessment.

The PT3 was introduced for the first time this year, to replace the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) which was abolished in 2013.

When the official PT3 results were released on Monday, many voiced their concerns over the decline in the number of top scorers while students said they were ill-prepared for the new format.

Dr Khair, however, said the assessment questions were based on the same curriculum used for the PMR.

“The format of the PT3 is also in line with the format of instruments used in the school assessments.

“The school assessments, which started in Form One, encourages teachers to assess students using various instruments such as oral (tests), written tests, course work, quizzes, experiments in science laboratories and checklists.

“This means students were exposed to various testing instruments since 2012.

“The ministry wishes to stress that is not true to say that Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) questions used (in the PT3) affected students’ achievement, as these questions encourage candidates to think critically and creatively,” he said.

Dr Khair said the PT3 results this year should not be compared with PMR results of the past because of the difference in format.

“This new structure of questions requires students to master critical thinking skills and properly understand the syllabus, compared to the previous objective questions where students only had to memorise the syllabus content to obtain good results.”

He added that the method of grading used also differed from PMR. PT3 has a fixed grading scheme while the PMR relied on the overall performance of students.

“The decision to replace the PMR with PT3 was made after gathering feedback from a wide spectrum of people who wanted an education system that was not too focused on examinations.

“Instead, our country must produce quality students who have the ability to think critically and creatively, and out-of-the-box.

“The ministry will continue to monitor and remedy any weakness to ensure that students receive the best education,” he said.