Students are failing not just in education but in life. The future of Malaysia is in danger as this could hinder the country’s economic development. According to Education Minister Fadhina Sidek and the statistic (Statistic), close to half of the SPM graduates from 2021 chose not to go to college. There has been an increase from 2020 when only 35.16% of SPM graduates chose not to go to college. The failure of Malaysia’s education system is having a negative impact on the people and the country. This prevents students from reaching their hidden potential and it’s hindering the country's development. It isn’t even the tip of the iceberg; do you know that most Malaysians who went through Malaysia’s education system are most likely to be in a cycle of poverty or failing in life?
Based on the internet and interviews, there are several reasons why Malaysia's education system is failing and how it is negatively affecting the people and the country.
The Traditional learning method of Malaysia is memorizing and general knowledge. The effectiveness of learning methods is no longer effective based on the statistics given above.
The traditional method has created a bad habit for students to memorize the subject rather than understanding them. This has led to a lack of problem solving and critical thinking skills among the graduates. Students are starting to not learn anything from classes but memorizing and forgetting it right after they graduated. “Yes, it will cause students to not think critically” said Pu Yang, a teacher from Real School
Students have also stated that they have no interest in class as the teaching styles were boring, which consist of memorizing large number of notes. As a result, majority of graduates are lacking in skills they need to succeed in the real world. They would often turn to Google or YouTube to solve their problems rather than replying on their own skills. “Teaching methods need to vary and be more interesting” said Pu Yang.
The type of exercise and homework given to students are focused on memorizing the questions and answers but not understanding what the question is about and why is that the answer. Furthermore, the education system in Malaysia only teaches general details regarding any subject, the teaching would never go into depths. Not only that but majority of the teaching is theoretical rather than practical. This means that students will not know how to implement what they learned in the real world. “Yes, theoretical practice should not outweigh practical practice” said Koh Wang Thai, a student from Real School.
Although national language are important helping students develop a strong sense of national identity, there are also concerns on learning subjects in national language rather than international language.
This could limit students' access to educational resources such as international resources like textbooks, articles, and online courses that are only available in international language. This would make it difficult for students to learn about the latest knowledge in their field. It also prevents opportunities for international studies, international studies could help student increase education but if students are not fluent in the international language, it will make it difficult for them to go and discourage them. “As a Malaysian, learning our national language is important as it give us our identity as a Malaysia, however, some subjects benefit more from being taught in an international language as it allows us to be more diverse when it comes to the real world” said by Mah Min Jun, a previous discipline teacher of Real School.
This can also reduce job opportunities for graduates as many jobs today require you to be fluent in an international language, which would make it difficult for graduates to be employed. This would also cause Malaysia's economy to go downwards even more if the workforce in the country is not fluent in international language as the Malaysian economy is slowly being integrated with the global economy.
Although the Malaysia education system is slowly adopting learning subjects in international language, this is only happening to majority of the private and international schools while government-aided schools are still being learned in the national language or even Chinese in some cases.
Graduates today says that the number one problem that they are struggling with is managing their finances. The education system in Malaysia should implement real-world lessons, such as financial literacy to students as compulsory.
A lack of financial literacy can have negative impacts on the graduates and the country.
Financial literacy would help graduates to understand and manage financial problems such as debts and bankruptcy. This would help them to make more informed financial decisions regarding investment, and buying assets rather than buying liabilities and losing their money. This can also help graduates to reach financial goals, have good retirement savings, and even own a home.
Graduate who doesn’t know how to budget may overspend and tend to end up in debt. If they do not know how to save and invest their money, they lose the opportunity to grow their wealth or even end up with not enough money to retire comfortably. “yes, many youths of this generation lack of financial literacy as they have no worries about money. these need to be taught at young ages to prepare them for the future” said Mah Min Jun.
If Malaysia were to have a lack of financial literacy, it would lead to lower economy growth, being vulnerable to financial crises and even an increase in poverty. Without financial literacy, graduates and even the country would struggle to manage these problems.
Teaching styles that teach student to avoid mistake will prevent students from learning and growing as an individual. Teach students not to make mistakes and if you do, you get punished rather than learning from it. This prevents student from learning from their mistake and being afraid of making mistakes. Teachers in schools want to see their student succeed and they believe that the best way to make sure of it is to teach them to avoid making mistake and to prevent it from happening. However, this would have the opposite effect and cause students to stop learning and growing.
One of the biggest problems with this method is that it creates fear for the students. When they are filled with fear, students are less likely to take risks and try things out unless they know it's right. This can limit their ability to be creative, have problem-solving skills and be resilient. When problems or challenges arise, a student who is afraid of making mistakes tends to give up easily.
Another problem with this method is that it prevents students from learning from the experience of failing. Making mistakes is a natural learning process, only by making mistakes, students will learn what works and what doesn’t work and even improve it. So, whenever students are being punished for making mistakes, they tend to not lie about making the mistakes in fear of getting punished and not learning from it. “I strongly believe without mistakes there won’t be improvement. Humans are not perfect; mistakes are a way to identify where we are lacking and to identify it and to improve. it also promotes critical thinking” said Mah Min Jun.
“In my opinion, the Malaysian education system is outdated, it does not provide sufficient content on many aspects of the real world. With an outdated education system, the country will suffer in the long run as it limits the development of the country” said Mah Min Jun.
How would Malaysia change for the better if the education system is better? After all the foundation of Malaysia's future relies on well-educated citizens.
Ong Jia Hong is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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