September seventeen 2012
The Havoc Education Reform Inflicts: Education Blueprint 2013-2025
First of Five Parts: Education Blueprint Transparent, But Not Bold Or Comprehensive
by Dr Bakri Musa. Morgan-Hill, California
Education remodel is inflicted upon Malaysians with a rule of a monsoon. Like a storm, a massacre these "reforms" create lingers prolonged after they have upheld through.
In this five-part commentary you will critique a latest remodel bid contained in Preliminary Report: Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025released upon Sep 11, 2012. The initial 3 essays will residence a Blueprint's commentary as good as recommendations; a fourth, a omissions, as good as a last, a flaws in a process with this sold remodel effort.
The Blueprint clearly identifies a categorical problems as good as challenges during both a complement as good as individual levels, though fails to investigate why or how they came about as good as why they have been let to fester. Consequently a recommendations have been formed some-more upon conjecture rather than solid data; some-more towards generalities as good as a stating of goals rather than upon specifics as good as how to achieve those goals.
On a positive side, a goals as good as milestones (at least some of them) have been clearly stated in quantifiable terms, so you would know either they have been achieved going forward.
Despite extensive open participation as good as a inclusion of most luminaries (including foreign ones) upon a panel, a inform has most glaring omissions. It fails to residence a sold challenges facing Islamic as good as farming national schools. This is startling deliberation which a voters in both streams have been Malays, a politically powerful group. Even some-more pertinent, those schools regularly perform during a bottom quartile; they drag down a whole system. Improving them would go a prolonged way in enhancing a entire system. Yet an additional repudiation is a disaster to investigate as good as to illustrate learn from earlier remodel efforts.
This Blueprint does not live up to Najib Razak's avowal of being "bold, comprehensive as good as transparent." Transparent perhaps, though not bold or comprehensive! That is not startling as a row is dominated by polite servants. They have been partial of a complaint for so prolonged which it would be too most to expect them right away to magically be partial of a solution.
It is a quite Malaysian obsession to remodel a educational policy with a domestic season. Every brand new apportion feels compelled to do it, as if to denote his domestic manhood. Now it is Muhyiddin's turn.
Five years ago underneath Hishamuddin there was Langkah Langkah Ke Arah Cemerlangan (Steps Towards Excellence). Five years prior to which underneath Musa Mohamad was Pembangunan Pendidikan 2001-2010: Rancangan Bersepadu Penjana Cemerlangan Pendidikan (Education Development 2010-2011. Plan for Unity Through Educati! onal Exc ellence). Notice a prolonged pretentious titles as good as visit use of a word "excellence."
In a meantime generations of immature Malaysians, in all Malays, continue to pay a price for a follies of previous reforms, in sold a a single in a 1970s which did divided with English schools. Someone eventually wisened up as good as brought behind a teaching of English, despite usually in scholarship as good as mathematics. Then just as you were adjusting to as good as recuperating from which reversal, a brand new leader who suspicion himself smarter changed behind a system!
This latest remodel expelled upon Sep 11, 2012, will infer to be a 9-11 of Malaysian education. The destruction might not be as thespian visually as good as physically as a alternative 9-11, though a wreckage will be real as good as massive, with a massacre superfluous prolonged after to haunt stream as good as destiny generations. The repairs will be extensive, cumulative, as good as compounding.
As in a past, this time you have been again being promised which this storm of a remodel will wash divided a thick soiled mist which has been hovering over a schools. Yes, a air will be clearer as good as fresher after a storm, as good as a birds will sing. Meanwhile however, you have to deal with ripped roofs, inundate debris, as good as mortal landslides.
In compiling this Blueprint a supervision has commendably sought wide open participation as good as during good expense. The open in spin responded massively as good as enthusiastically, reflecting a angst over a preparation system. The row however, did not amply mind a difference in between quantity as good as quality, as good as duly gave equal time to a bombasts as good as a wise.
The Chall! enge of Quality
This Blueprint, identical to earlier ones, is already getting rave reviews from a usual quarters. Just as predictably, a year or dual from right away even prior to any of a recommendations have been fully implemented, "scholars" from a open universities will declare through their "research" which a reforms have already constructed a anticipated improvements!
We saw this when a policy of teaching scholarship as good as arithmetic in English was rescinded. Barely a year in to a module as good as "scholars" from a open universities were already trumpeting a "remarkable" alleviation in a scholarship as good as arithmetic scores in all between farming Malay students. With all those good improvements a single wonders why you need an additional reform!
This brand new Blueprint was barely expelled when Muhiyiddin voiced a brand new story curriculum, meaning, a single written by UMNO hired hands. So most for a weight given to this remodel as good as a design of formulating students able of critical as good as eccentric thinking!
No a single would argue with a Blueprint's objectives of mending access, quality, equity, unity, as good as efficiency. Consider quality; it is uppermost in everyone's mind. The supervision proudly parades a success rates during a national examinations, as with a accelerating number of A's scored. Yet when assessed by such outmost yardsticks as TIMSS as good as PISA, a students scored poorly. As a inform acknowledges, they have been during least dual to 3 grades behind their counterparts in South Korea, as good as declining.
The row glosses over this glaring curiosity as good as to illustrate fails to pull a usually as good as important conclusion: Obviously what you learn as good as how you test have been substandard; worse, you have been doing both wrong!
If your home thermometer says you do not have a heat though during a hospital you register a high fever, afterwards you should get rid of your th! ermomete r lest you would be dangerously misled in a future. If you instruct a students to be in a top third in PISA as good as TIMSS, afterwards you should initial allot with a stream curriculum as good as contrast as they do not relate (in actuality inversely correlated) with those general measurements.
Consider an additional objective, to have a students be bilingual in Malay as good as English. you determine with that; a complaint is how to achieve it. The row addresses a issue generally, though a kampong child in Ulu Kelantan faces a vastly opposite complaint in guidance English vis-a-vis a diplomat's son in Bukit Tunku; serve a Tamil lady upon an estate propagandize in Ulu Tiram guidance Malay to a penghulu's daughter during a national propagandize in Ulu Trengganu.
It would be wiser to focus initial upon a complaint areas, as with mending a Malay inclination of students in vernacular schools as good as a English skills of Malays in national schools. Correct both as good as you would go a prolonged way in mending a system's altogether performance, as good as in a process satisfy many.
As a challenges have been very different; a solutions too contingency indispensably be different. For vernacular schools in all in areas where Malay is not at large spoken, devoting some-more hours to Malay as good as carrying bilingual (Malay as good as a vernacular language) teachers would be a some-more appropriate solution.
In a kampongs however, not usually is English not at large used, there is additionally active enmity to using as good as guidance it. Again this is not a complaint unique to a kampongs. In Western Canada there is identical rancour towards guidance French despite it being Canada's second official language. To strike this as good as recompense for a low tur! n of Fre nch use in a community, some schools have total soak classes where pupils would outlay their initial 3 or some-more years in classes conducted wholly in French. As a module is wholly voluntary, it is politically as good as socially palatable. As relatives find a most advantages, a a number enrolled soars.
A identical resolution could be in use in a kampongs. Have English soak classes for a initial couple of or improved yet, throughout a entire primary propagandize years. Introduce Malay usually during Form One. Go over which as good as have delegate schools which would learn half a subjects in Malay as good as a alternative half in English. Science as good as arithmetic would be a ideal subjects to learn in English. Such a propagandize would furnish fluently bilingual graduates
Aware of a domestic sensitivities Malays have towards guidance English, you would make a module wholly voluntary, identical to those French soak classes in Western Canada. Kampong Malays have been as receptive as those Anglophone Western Canadians. Once those Malays see a advantages of being proficient in English, they will group to enroll their children in those soak classes.
Such schools could be a innovation worthy of simulation by alternative nations who similarly make an effort to have their students be bilingual. Such Malay-English bilingual schools have been most easier to set up than Arabic-English or Mandarin-English ones as Malay as good as English share a same roman script. you would restrict such schools to usually those who already have (or can demonstrate) near-native fluency in Malay so which those students would not "forget" how to speak Malay.
In practical terms, this was how my contemporaries as good as you schooled English behind in a 1950s. English use was even most lower then, in actuality nonexistent, during my home as good as community. you advocate bringing behind those English schools, though site them usually in areas with low turn of English as good as high Malay u! sage, as in a kampongs.
If you were to bring behind a aged English schools (as a parent-group PAGE is 
advocating) as good as locate them in a cities where a use of Malay is low, afterwards you would usually resurrect a aged complaint where students would omit Malay.
Similarly, such Malay soak classes could be used to raise a inclination of non-Malay students, in all in communities where a use of Malay is low.
The row highlights a most islands of value in a propagandize system. Yes there certainly are, as with a missionary as good as eccentric Chinese schools. As they have been already doing a superb job there is little need to remodel them. Instead a supervision should await them so they could raise as good as replicate their successes. Others (including as good as in all a government) would afterwards be inspired to obey them. you would impose usually a single condition for which generous open await as good as which is a a number enrolled contingency simulate a general Malaysian society. Such a policy would additionally serve a single of a stated goals of a Blueprint: to raise togetherness between a young.
Next: Part Two: Quality Schools Begin with Quality Teachers
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