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EDUCATION Minister Fadhlina Sidek knows her ministry plays an important role in shaping the future of Malaysians in years to come.
Yet, I am surprised that from a list of nine members in the National Education Advisory Council (NEAC) for 2023-2025, only one Indian and one Chinese are representing these two communities.
There is not even a single Sabahan or Sarawakian in the NEAC.
Without a doubt, education has always been the major focus of most Chinese parents.
Indians, too, have excelled in the education system throughout the history of this nation, because among those early migrants from South India were, in fact, members of the teaching profession.
Instead of being sent to kindergarten, my parents put me together with my sisters to learn from a young Indian man. I was able to do Year 2 and 3 mathematics when I was only 6-years-old.
In order to win back the confidence of the other races in our education system, their views must also be taken into serious consideration, and not just for show.
Plurality of views
A good starting point for education reform is that the education minister herself must begin by changing her mindset and invite the participation of communities other than her own race.
Unless of course we are pushing our own agenda, as fellow Malaysians, we should no longer be threatened by the presence of other races in a committee or when others have a different view.
More people should be given the opportunity to serve on the NEAC so that the best ideas are implemented for the sake of our common future together as Malaysians.
Plurality is what adds colour to the country’s social fabric, and we can leverage on each other’s strengths when everyone gets to participate in contributing their ideas.
I would have expected Pakatan Harapan (PH) to be more progressive. After all, many of us fought so hard in the last few general elections to help PH win and see Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim eventually become prime minister.
For the record, I pulled my children out of the national-type school system because I had lost confidence in the country’s education system when Maszlee Malik was helming the ministry.
Even though I now have to carry the burden of paying school fees every month, I feel it is still the best option for my children. And so far they are performing so much better in their studies, compared to their early years.
Key points for the minister
1. Read the above points again. Begin by having a truly Malaysian council to advise the minister in setting the direction for the country’s education
2. Consolidate the education syllabus. Focus on the envisaged outcomes that we expect from our education system. Our education curriculum has been developed over the years without a clear outcome in mind.
Each time a new minister takes over, their objective is to leave an imprint on the system. The syllabus lacks a clear focus. This was one reason why, when Maszlee introduced khat (Islamic calligraphy), I was opposed to it, not because it was Islamic but because the Bahasa Malaysia curriculum is already too packed.
Khat, alongside other forms of calligraphy, can have been introduced as part of the arts subject once or twice a year, which would be sufficient for young students to appreciate the different forms of calligraphy.
Anything more than that is nothing but an attempt to push a certain agenda. Let’s be honest about it: assuming that I push the learning of Hebrew and Greek at school level, would you think I have a certain agenda?
Begin by asking these questions: what is it that we want to produce from the school system? Do we want young people who can only regurgitate knowledge or do we want to produce independent learners capable of applying and looking for knowledge, so that they are well prepared for their further education.
Take for example, the learning of the national language: to what extent do we want our young people to learn the language? Are we hoping to produce a literary expert who knows tatabahasa (grammar) by the time they complete Form 5? Or do we want them to be at least fluent in the use of the language?
3. Project-based learning. Our education curriculum is designed to produce students who, at the end of the journey, can hardly digest half of what they have been forced to learn throughout their first 12 years of education.
Compared to the level of Bahasa Malaysia of our children these days, our school system back in the 70s helped us to be able to read, write, and speak in fluent Malay.
Even with more textbooks and workbooks, our children are often mediocre with their language skills.
There are also too many subjects that have been introduced. With each new idea suggested by the minister, a new subject is born. For example, moral education and civic education may have slightly different emphases, but they simply add burdens to our education system, as teaching resources have to be allocated to teach these subjects. Then, students have to sit for examinations.
Instead, such subjects could have been introduced as part of a module teaching the children to carry out their own research in the library, present a speech, or produce a simple drama to illustrate a point. Project-based learning and assessment would allow them to participate in the learning process. There is no need for so many thick textbooks and activity books for these subjects. Active learning is better than passive learning.
Moral education, for example, can be imparted through assignments in English or Bahasa Malaysia classes by getting students to write their views on, for example, why honesty is important. They can be taught to carry out an interview or do a quantitative survey, which can be part of the teaching of mathematics.
4. Heavy school bags have become a “trademark” of the Malaysian education system. Despite suggestions made in the past, till today the ministry still prefers to publish textbooks with 100 to 200 pages for each subject.
Why can’t each subject be modularised? For example, instead of 10 chapters in a textbook, split them into 10 modules of only a few pages. This will reduce the weight of books that children have to carry to school.
A number of subjects, for example computing, should be made available online for students. In rural schools, the same materials should be downloaded onto the student’s laptop provided by the government.
For parents who can provide their children with a notebook, these textbooks should be provided to them in the form of flip books which can be browsed easily.
5. Be practical with what is taught in the curriculum. In my secondary school years, we were taught to do calculations using the longer route just to demonstrate our understanding of mathematics problems.
I am sure by now most of us would have forgotten the process of obtaining the answer to a simple mathematics problem, e.g. 85 x 15. To score marks, the students had to go through the step-by-step process to obtain the answer, although a mental calculation would have yielded the same answer: 1275.
In this day and age, it no longer makes sense for the subject to be taught the way a mathematician would like to teach the logic of mathematics.
Instead, mental calculations would be more useful, and once the child is out of school, they will either use an electronic calculator or an Excel sheet to carry out more complicated mathematics problems.
Progressive and dynamic
In the West, the education system is more progressive and dynamic. It teaches children to learn social skills early in life and think critically and creatively.
Children are more likely to be independent by the time they reach their teens, making them more capable of coping with their university education.
Can our education system achieve this outcome? – The Vibes, January 21, 2023
Stephen Ng is a prolific columnist who writes extensively on politics and education