MALAYSIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM IS A FAILURE?

How to judge either our education system is a success or a failure? Should we judge based on the academic results in the last decade? Or should we judge based on the students’ morale and attitude? Should we weigh in the academic syllabus and its effectiveness?

I was briefly studying abroad and had opportunities to teach in few international schools in Malaysia. These experiences had given me chances to broaden my point of view of our education system. Do read till the end before delivering your judgments toward my opinions.

MALAYSIANS ARE TIMID
During my year abroad, I was given chance to converse with several educators. Their perceptions toward MALAYSIAN STUDENTS are that our students are GENERALLY intelligent, always on-time for lectures, polite but UNNECESSARILY TIMID. Our students always has the right questions to ask during lectures, and yet most of them waited until the class is over to ask the questions to the lecturer. Such a shame, as great knowledge that should be shared with the rest of the class only to be answered privately.

Let’s ask ourselves? Why are we so TIMID to voice out GREAT OPINIONS, to ask ACADEMIC RELATED QUESTIONS in class? This is mainly because during our school years, MOST of our teachers asked us to wait till the classes end to ask question. It seems RUDE in our culture to talk in the middle of the class.

Is it the teachers’ fault? Let put ourselves in their shoe; they have about 30-40 students in a class with various capability and EXTREMELY packed lesson plan to finish for each class. How to ensure everyone understand and yet manage to follow the timeline for the lesson plan? If they used up longer time to explain, the syllabus might not finish. It is an impossible task and yet our teachers are doing their best delivering it.

One more point to ponder, do you realize that culturally our youngsters are not encourage to have point of views? The elders "makan garam dahulu", thus their opinions are mostly considered more valuable. Even in class, the students are TOO AFRAID TO ANSWER WRONGLY; the peers may laughed at them, they may be considered stupid and worse, they may be punished for it. These are among reasons that cultivate too-timid-to-shine attitude in our children.

SEKOLAH KEBANGSAAN VS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

When I was a teacher in an international school, I was amazed by the teaching methods shown by MORE EXPERIENCED FOREIGN teachers. They managed to make every lesson interactive, fun and student oriented. Can you imagine, history classes to be fun?

There are chatters in every class (except during examination OF COURSE), and the conversations are all academic related. The students are encourage to voice out opinions from young age. There are no wrong questions. WRONG ANSWERS ARE WELCOME. The teachers do not teach them to memorized but guide them to explore on their own.

As a result, the students are not afraid to ask questions and to answer wrongly. Thus, their confidence level are significantly higher than majority teens here in Malaysia. Their academic knowledge is not merely for examinations. As most of the lessons are based on understanding and not memorization, the knowledge tend to stick longer.

PUT FUN BACK INTO EDUCATION

Our education system is not a failure but rather flawed. There are still room for improvements. As a start, the number of students per class shouldn’t be too high. Then, our teachers have the opportunity to shine. The time now spent to mark the students’ papers and books can be reduced, thus providing more time for lesson planning. The efforts now used to manage 40 students can be exchanged to guiding activities to smaller groups.

Secondly, it is TIME for us to realize that classes should not be 1-sided anymore. It should be student-oriented and fun-based learning. Fun does not belongs to kindergartners only.  Then, the students will voluntarily and happily come to school, participate and succeed. 

How to assimilate fun in learning? Firstly, it should neither be lecture-style nor copy-the-textbook time anymore. More hands-on and practical learning rather than theories and memorization. Other than that, presentations, activities and games should be encouraged. Laughter, chatters and discussions should be in as many lessons as possible. The students should be challenged to find answers, learn and understand the lessons alongside with teachers' guidance.

There is a quote that aspire me;

SUCCESS REDEFINED

Other than that, we should expand our definition of success by NOT looking at ACADEMIC RESULTS only. We should accept that academic result is NOT everything. It is OKAY to fail, but it is NOT OKAY to quit. School should be a place for the students to absorb academic education alongside with their morale, attitude and confidence. It is a place for them to learn, make mistakes, learn from them and grow. 

It is CRUCIAL for us to redefine our view. The moment we STOP PRESSURING our children on academic success is the moment they can ENJOY SCHOOL ONCE AGAIN. It is time for us to reward and acknowledge our children in their EFFORTS rather than SUCCESS.