FAILURE IN OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM
Would like to voice my opinion on success and failure. Throughout my service as a teacher I have gone through lots of failures and of course some success. My main discussion here is focused on the success and failures in education. The Ministry of Education have been and is still introducing new ideas and programs into the education system of Malaysia. Let's look at their success and failures.
First and foremost I would like to bring readers attention to the core of the Malaysian Education system the "Falsafah Pendidikan Kebangsaan". It has been neglected and ignored by most of us in carrying out our duties as teachers. Most of us do not fully understand the objective of the FPK thus we carry out our teaching duties as we seem fit. Programs introduced by the ministry are plentiful. One of them was KBSR / KBSM. It was introduced in the 1983. Teachers were doing extra work especially in preparing teaching aids before teaching a topic. The beauty of the program was that the kids were placed in groups of each and everyone's ability. Classrooms were setup with desk set into clusters of 6 desks. Each cluster belongs to a particular group, that is A, B, C and D. These kids are not placed fixed in a particular group. They will be moving from group to group according to their abilities in each subjects. It was doing well until officers from the District Education Office and the State Education Office began introducing forms and reports to be filled in and submitted to them. Thus making teachers bored and fed-up with all the paper work. This has caused the grouping of kids to be fix and stagnant. Then came the UPSR evaluation program. That's it. All the KBSR culture were left aside for the aim in obtaining results in the UPSR evaluation. Classes were streamed according to merit. The good kids right down to the poor ones. This is the first failure that I see.
What's next? Instilling language skills in students. Have we ever looked at the success in instilling language skills such as speaking, reading and writing among our kids in schools. Yes we do groom kids to achieve good results in their examinations but does that signifies that the kid have acquired the skills to a certain required level. Most of these kids who achieved good grades in language are not able to speak fluently with good language commands. In fact they were not able to express themselves properly with proper language. This weakness is very glaring especially during a job interview session. The response we get from the questions asked is usually conveyed with lack of confidence and weak. Writing skills is another skill that most of our kids are lacking. Student fail to give a good written report, essays and even letters. Most of these students were trained to memories copies of literature so much so that we notice that the written outcome is almost the same as the original text memorized. They fail to express themselves as they feel. Most of the time what was written have similar structures and style as the original text. Reading is another skill that is not acquired by the students. During the oral test examiners notice that the intonation, pronunciation and punctuation were not proper. Some even mumble not being able to read out the words clearly and correctly. Thus language teachers should come up with ways of improving the students language skills. Well these are some of the failures that I see during my teaching days. Of course there are teachers who were successful in developing the language skill they teach but there are only a few of them. Language and Mathematics teachers are very important in building up the basic 3R skills among students. The syllabus set by the ministry is very well planned. Teaching of the skills from the syllabus became focused in achieving good grades in the examination. Schools are aiming in getting as many A's as possible instead of aiming to get 100% passes in the subject. What is the point of getting a number of A's whilst 30% - 40% of the students fail. Thus the objectives of the FPK is being ignored. Hence we fail in building a generation of well balance individuals. It's about time the education system be revised and rejuvenated.
First and foremost I would like to bring readers attention to the core of the Malaysian Education system the "Falsafah Pendidikan Kebangsaan". It has been neglected and ignored by most of us in carrying out our duties as teachers. Most of us do not fully understand the objective of the FPK thus we carry out our teaching duties as we seem fit. Programs introduced by the ministry are plentiful. One of them was KBSR / KBSM. It was introduced in the 1983. Teachers were doing extra work especially in preparing teaching aids before teaching a topic. The beauty of the program was that the kids were placed in groups of each and everyone's ability. Classrooms were setup with desk set into clusters of 6 desks. Each cluster belongs to a particular group, that is A, B, C and D. These kids are not placed fixed in a particular group. They will be moving from group to group according to their abilities in each subjects. It was doing well until officers from the District Education Office and the State Education Office began introducing forms and reports to be filled in and submitted to them. Thus making teachers bored and fed-up with all the paper work. This has caused the grouping of kids to be fix and stagnant. Then came the UPSR evaluation program. That's it. All the KBSR culture were left aside for the aim in obtaining results in the UPSR evaluation. Classes were streamed according to merit. The good kids right down to the poor ones. This is the first failure that I see.
What's next? Instilling language skills in students. Have we ever looked at the success in instilling language skills such as speaking, reading and writing among our kids in schools. Yes we do groom kids to achieve good results in their examinations but does that signifies that the kid have acquired the skills to a certain required level. Most of these kids who achieved good grades in language are not able to speak fluently with good language commands. In fact they were not able to express themselves properly with proper language. This weakness is very glaring especially during a job interview session. The response we get from the questions asked is usually conveyed with lack of confidence and weak. Writing skills is another skill that most of our kids are lacking. Student fail to give a good written report, essays and even letters. Most of these students were trained to memories copies of literature so much so that we notice that the written outcome is almost the same as the original text memorized. They fail to express themselves as they feel. Most of the time what was written have similar structures and style as the original text. Reading is another skill that is not acquired by the students. During the oral test examiners notice that the intonation, pronunciation and punctuation were not proper. Some even mumble not being able to read out the words clearly and correctly. Thus language teachers should come up with ways of improving the students language skills. Well these are some of the failures that I see during my teaching days. Of course there are teachers who were successful in developing the language skill they teach but there are only a few of them. Language and Mathematics teachers are very important in building up the basic 3R skills among students. The syllabus set by the ministry is very well planned. Teaching of the skills from the syllabus became focused in achieving good grades in the examination. Schools are aiming in getting as many A's as possible instead of aiming to get 100% passes in the subject. What is the point of getting a number of A's whilst 30% - 40% of the students fail. Thus the objectives of the FPK is being ignored. Hence we fail in building a generation of well balance individuals. It's about time the education system be revised and rejuvenated.
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