By Violet Ooi
“When teachers are not academically inclined, how are they going to enjoy their jobs?” said one activist. Such is among the major concerns the public has towards the education system in Malaysia. KiniBiz investigates.
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When the result of the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) was published in 2009, Malaysians were shocked to find out that local students fared so badly in the assessment that they were among the bottom 20 with the lowest scores, trailing far behind their Singaporean, South Korean and Taiwanese counterparts.
Again in 2012, Malaysians were placed at the bottom third. PISA is a triennial survey conducted by the Organisations of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to assess the mathematical, science and reading ability (proficiency) of 15-year-olds in more than 60 countries worldwide.
The results reflect the immediate drawback of public secondary schools and are evidence of the quality deficit in the education system. According to the Ministry of Education, a typical question in a PISA test is presented in the form of lengthy text which requires students to make interpretation based on real-life experience.
In contrast Malaysian students are long used to simple and formulaic questions.
In this case, it is not so much a problem of content as a problem of assessment. Questions that demand straightforward answers do not require much thinking as long as students spend some time memorising facts, a habit most Malaysian students pick up at a young age.
Knowing that our students lack critical thinking, the Ministry started to introduce questions that require high-order thinking skills (HOTS) — which include critical, logical, reflective, metacognitive, and creative thinking abilities — in public exams.
Quality of public school teachers
“Science and mathematics are fine as far as syllabus is concerned. In fact it is quite compact,” said Noor Azimah, the chairperson of Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia (PAGE), a loud critique of the education system who favours reverting to teaching of science and maths in English.
Noor Azimah
The problem, she said, lies within the delivery of the subject — whether the teachers are teaching the subjects according to how it is supposed to be taught is a matter of concern.
The quality of public school teachers is under scrutiny. Many of them are not even equipped with the extensive knowledge required to inject information to students, their language proficiency is bad and they are not academically competent. Some lack teaching commitment, are lazy and irresponsible.
In Malaysia, teaching is deemed a profession of last resort. The existing pool of teachers largely constitutes those who either couldn’t make it to other institutes of higher learning or those unemployed in search of jobs offering stable income. There is no incentive for talented people to become teachers.
“The basis of becoming teachers itself is poor; if you can’t get a job then you become a teacher,” said Noor Azimah, pointing to the general sentiment towards the teaching profession in Malaysia.
The majority of teachers, especially new ones, are not even academically competent based on their average Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) results of 3As to 5As. According to the Malaysian Education Blueprint, at one point teachers who were offered jobs had zero to two As in SPM.
When asked what are the solutions to address this problem, Noor Azimah firmly believes that the government should come out with an exit policy to give those terrible teachers a way out. “The government shouldn’t be too lenient nor compassionate — we should get rid of teachers who are of no use,” said Noor Azimah. “If a teacher is not even academically inclined, how is she going to enjoy the job?”
The Malaysian Education Blueprint has sought to improve teachers’ quality by raising the entry bar for institutes of teacher education. Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said that efforts have been taken in 2013 to ensure that these teachers-to-be are from the top 30% of graduates. Given the current perception of the teaching profession, many medium-performing grads would not even contemplate teaching, let alone the smart ones who surely know that better jobs are in store for them.
An attractive remuneration package should work its magic as incentives are always especially alluring. Top performing graduates should definitely be compensated heftily provided that they can excel at their jobs.
Quality of training should be improved especially in terms of improving teachers’ knowledge as well as their teaching methods and articulations of subjects. If the ministry wants to incorporate HOTS in students, it should first ensure that teachers are capable of doing so too.
“The challenge for the government now is that they are moving towards HOTS which is supposed to encourage critical thinking, but teachers themselves are not prepared and have not been trained for this. So even if the content is okay, the teachers cannot properly teach the students on how to apply HOTS,” said Ong Kian Ming, member of parliament for Serdang.
Improving English proficiency
In addition, the government should work towards improving English proficiency among both teachers and students. Malaysians pride themselves at being multicultural and multilingual, yet not many have a command of multiple languages, especially English. Students, especially those from national or vernacular schools in rural or suburban areas, are at the most disadvantageous positions due to the lack of English exposure.
Reverting to teaching science and maths in English would require significant amounts of time, money and dealing with loads of politics. Since the government is not tilted back to that direction in the short term, then attention should at least be shifted towards improving the English syllabus which is taught as a subject in Malaysia.
English teachers should at least be proficient enough to teach. English classes are an important platform for students to listen and converse in English. Besides, the ministry should revise and revamp its English syllabus especially in literature — for instance, replacing literary (novels) in abridged version with original ones.
Muhyiddin made headlines when he reportedly said that he is “baffled by Malaysians’ poor grasp of English and something is not right” with the education system. The words have sparked rage among the public especially the online community who find this statement unacceptable and claimed that the minister’s job is to fix the problem.
To conclude, the challenge boils down to the seriousness of the people who are in charge of such important tasks. No matter how ambitious and well framed the goals of National Education Blueprint are, if people aren’t serious about implementing it, it would be just another expensive window dressing project in Malaysia.
Yesterday: The uncompetitive graduate
Tomorrow: The case for vocational education
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