September 17 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" emanate lingers prolonged after they have upheld through.
In this five-part commentary you will critique a ultimate remodel bid contained in Preliminary Report: Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025released upon September 11, 2012. The initial 3 essays will residence a Blueprint's findings as well as recommendations; a fourth, a omissions, as well as a last, a flaws in a process with this sold remodel effort.
The Blueprint obviously identifies a main problems as well as hurdles during both a complement as well as individual levels, though fails to investigate why or how they came about as well as why they have been let to fester. Consequently a recommendations have been formed some-more upon conjecture rsther than than solid data; some-more towards generalities as well as a stating of goals rsther than than upon specifics as well as how to achieve those goals.
On a positive side, a goals as well as milestones (at slightest a small of them) have been obviously settled in quantifiable terms, so you would know whether they have been completed going forward.
Despite endless open appearance as well as a inclusion of most luminaries (including foreign ones) upon a panel, a report has most vivid omissions. It fails to residence a sold hurdles facing Islamic as well as farming inhabitant schools. This is startling deliberation which a constituents in both streams have been Malays, a politically powerful group. Even some-more pertinent, those schools continually perform during a bottom quartile; they drag down a sum system. Improving them would go a prolonged way in enhancing a entire system. Yet an additional repudiation is a failure to investigate as well as to illustrate sense from earlier remodel efforts.
This Blueprint does not live up to Najib Razak's avowal of being "bold, comprehensive as well as transparent." Transparent perhaps, though not confidant 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 as well most to expect them right away to magically be partial of a solution.
It is a particularly Malaysian obsession to remodel a educational process with a domestic season. Every brand brand brand new minister 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 Educational Excellence). Notice a prolonged! pretent ious titles as well as visit have use of of a word "excellence."
In a meantime generations of immature Malaysians, in all Malays, continue to pay a price for a follies of prior reforms, in sold a a single in a 1970s which did away with English schools. Someone finally wisened up as well as brought behind a training of English, albeit usually in science as well as mathematics. Then usually as you were adjusting to as well as recuperating from which reversal, a brand brand brand new leader who thought himself smarter changed behind a system!
This ultimate remodel expelled upon September 11, 2012, will infer to be a 9-11 of Malaysian education. The drop might not be as thespian visually as well as physically as a alternative 9-11, though a wreckage will be real as well as massive, with a massacre superfluous prolonged after to haunt stream as well as destiny generations. The repairs will be extensive, cumulative, as well as compounding.
As in a past, this time you have been again being betrothed which this charge of a remodel will wash away a thick soiled haze which has been hovering over a schools. Yes, a air will be clearer as well as fresher after a storm, as well as a birds will sing. Meanwhile however, you have to understanding with ripped roofs, inundate debris, as well as destructive landslides.
In compiling this Blueprint a supervision has commendably sought far-reaching open appearance as well as during good expense. The open in spin responded massively as well as enthusiastically, reflecting a angst over a preparation system. The row however, did not amply thoughts a disproportion in between quantity as well as quality, as well as duly gave equal time to a bombasts as well as a wise.
The Challenge of Quality
This Blueprint, similar to earlier ones, is already removing 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 wholly implemented, "scholars" from a open universities will acknowledgement through their "research" which a reforms have already constructed a anticipated improvements!
We saw this when a process of training science as well as arithmetic in English was rescinded. Barely a year in to a module as well as "scholars" from a open universities were already trumpeting a "remarkable" improvement in a science as well 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 brand brand new Blueprint was hardly expelled when Muhiyiddin announced a brand brand brand new history curriculum, meaning, a single written by UMNO hired hands. So most for a weight since to this remodel as well as a design of formulating students capable of critical as well as eccentric thinking!
No a single would argue with a Blueprint's objectives of mending access, quality, equity, unity, as well as efficiency. Consider quality; it is uppermost in everyone's mind. The supervision proudly parades a success rates during a inhabitant examinations, as with a accelerating number of A's scored. Yet when assessed by such outmost yardsticks as TIMSS as well as PISA, a students scored poorly. As a report acknowledges, they have been during slightest dual to 3 grades during a behind of their counterparts in South Korea, as well as declining.
The row glosses over this vivid curiosity as well as to illustrate fails to pull a usually as well as important conclusion: Obviously what you teach as well as how you test have been substandard; worse, you have been you do both wrong!
If your home thermometer says you do not have a heat though during a hospital you register a tall fever, afterwards y! ou shoul d get absolved of your thermometer lest you would be dangerously misled in a future. If you instruct a students to be in a tip third in PISA as well as TIMSS, afterwards you should initial allot with a stream curriculum as well as contrast as they do not correlate (in fact inversely correlated) with those international measurements.
Consider an additional objective, to have a students be bilingual in Malay as well as English. you determine with that; a complaint is how to achieve it. The row addresses a emanate generally, though a kampong boy in Ulu Kelantan faces a vastly opposite complaint in guidance English vis-a-vis a diplomat's son in Bukit Tunku; further a Tamil lady upon an estate propagandize in Ulu Tiram guidance Malay to a penghulu's daughter during a inhabitant propagandize in Ulu Trengganu.
It would be wiser to focus initial upon a complaint areas, as with mending a Malay proficiency of students in vernacular schools as well as a English skills of Malays in inhabitant schools. Correct both as well as you would go a prolonged way in mending a system's altogether performance, as well as in a process prove many.
As a hurdles have been very different; a solutions as well contingency necessarily be different. For vernacular schools in all in areas where Malay is not during large spoken, devoting some-more hours to Malay as well as having bilingual (Malay as well as a vernacular language) teachers would be a some-more suitable solution.
In a kampongs however, not usually is English not during large used, there is additionally active enmity to regulating as well as guidance it. Again this is not a complaint singular to a kampongs. In Western Canada there is similar rancour towards guidance French notwithstanding it being Canada's second central language. To strike this! as well as recompense for a low turn of French use in a community, a small schools have sum 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 well as socially palatable. As relatives discover a most advantages, a a number enrolled soars.
A similar resolution could be in use in a kampongs. Have English soak classes for a initial couple of or better yet, via a entire primary propagandize years. Introduce Malay usually during Form One. Go beyond which as well as have delegate schools which would teach half a subjects in Malay as well as a alternative half in English. Science as well as arithmetic would be a ideal subjects to teach in English. Such a propagandize would produce fluently bilingual graduates
Aware of a domestic sensitivities Malays have towards guidance English, you would have a module wholly voluntary, similar 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 emulation by alternative nations who similarly aspire 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 well as English share a same roman script. you would shorten 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 verbalise Malay.
In unsentimental terms, this was how my contemporaries as well as you learned English behind in a 1950s. English use was even most lower then, in fact nonexistent, during my home as well as community. you disciple bringing behind those English schools, though site them usually in areas with low turn of English a! s well a s tall Malay usage, as in a kampongs.
If you were to move behind a aged English schools (as a parent-group PAGE is 
advocating) as well as fix up them in a cities where a use of Malay is low, afterwards you would usually revive a aged complaint where students would omit Malay.
Similarly, such Malay soak classes could be used to raise a proficiency of non-Malay students, in all in communities where a use of Malay is low.
The row highlights a most islands of excellence in a propagandize system. Yes there certainly are, as with a companion as well as eccentric Chinese schools. As they have been already you do a glorious pursuit there is small need to remodel them. Instead a supervision should await them so they could raise as well as replicate their successes. Others (including as well as in all a government) would afterwards be desirous to obey them. you would levy usually a single condition for which generous open await as well as which is a a number enrolled contingency reflect a ubiquitous Malaysian society. Such a process would additionally further a single of a settled goals of a Blueprint: to raise unity between a young.
Next: Part Two: Quality Schools Begin with Quality Teachers
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