Education in Malaysia

Once upon a time, if you fail your core subjects in PMR, you cannot go to Form 4. That means, if you fail your Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Inggeris or Matematik, you must repeat your Form 3 education.

Most people don’t repeat Form 3 because of  ego. They become drop-outs. That is a problem.

If most people stay on to repeat Form 3, that will be a problem too. How and where will they physically retain them? The school will become a reservoir for people who don’t want to study, but still want to go to school to see their friends and legitimately get pocket money from their parents.

So, scrap that. Let everyone go on to Form 4 by proxy. Let the Science stream and Arts stream do the work of separating the sheep from the goats.

It worked for a while. School drop-out rate was reduced. Eventually, a new problem surfaced. Now, we now have class-fuls of students who can’t read, can’t write, and can’t count to save their lives. Failure rate went up, politicans’ votes went down.

What do we do now?

Ok, maybe our standards are too high. Let’s lower the bar, bring down the passing mark. Make national exams easier to pass and harder to fail.

It worked for a while. Then it worked no more. Failure rate went up again. The socio-economic gap is widening. What should we do now?

Here’s an idea. Perhaps the syllabus is not relevant for us. After all, we are an agricultural nation. Let’s make the syllabus more useful for Malaysians. People will not realize that “making the syllabus relevant” is an euphemism for “watering down its content” if we don’t say it, will they?

It’s genius! It worked! But soon, it started happening again. Unemployment rate is alarming. We need another plan. What must we do now?

Ok, let’s try this. Change the medium of instruction for the teaching of Science and Mathematics to English. It could put us a step forward to keep up with a globalized world, help our students become more industrially competent, reduce unemployment rate, and lessen the socio-economic gap.

Did it work?

The powers that be decided that it is not working. The students can’t do it. The teachers can’t teach it. What do we do now?

Let’s try this then. Revert everything back into Bahasa Melayu.

To show people that English is still our priority, let’s mass hire English teachers! Do it in tens of thousands! The in-pouring flood of English teachers will solve the problem of defeciency in English.

Just a cotton pickin’ minute. This may be a scathing analysis, but let’s be frank with ourselves. How did we get here in the first place? Let’s ask these few questions and try to answer them objectively:

• How many of us teachers are competent in English, really?
• How come we are not competent?
• How did we complete our primary, secondary and tertiary education, and still have fundamental problems with our English?
  
• Did we not get our university degrees, when the medium of  instruction was in English?
• How did we become Science With Education graduates, or TESL/TESOL graduates, when we can’t hold a decent conversation in English?
• How did we become teachers of the subject?
• Is not our “graduation” from a student to becoming a teacher highly questionable?
  

If you catch my drift, do you think mass-hiring English teachers is a way out of this problem?

I suggest we take a look at our filters. See how the filters have been systematically removed, and how the elimination of filters have contributed to this whole problem-making process.

Can’t pass English in Form 3? Nevermind. Pass “Go”, move on to Form 4.

Can’t get a good grade in SPM? Don’t worry. The bar has been lowered. Pass “Go”, move on to Form 6.

Can’t survive Form 6? No problem. You can go to matriculation. Bypass Form 6. Pass “Go”, move on to university.

Can’t handle it because everything is in high level English? Don’t worry. Your lecturers can’t either. Even if they can, they are not supposed to fail you, or they may lose their job. Pass “Go”, collect your degree.

Realize that you are industrially useless? Don’t worry, the government cares for you. You can be absorbed into civil service.

Can’t teach well in English? It’s ok, it’s not your fault. We’ll change the medium of instruction to a language more familiar to you.

Students eventually finish their secondary education. They don’t become competent in English. They get SPM certificates with ridiculously low passing marks and ridiculously high alphabets attached to them. They apply for entry into tertiary education. They get a degree. They come out into the working world. They face the harsh reality…

The cycle continues.

Each cycle automatically deteriorates. It does not take rocket science to analyze this: Good apples make good pies. Bad apples make bad pies. Either that, or horrible pies. Good pies are out of the question.

Looks good on the outside. But you got to taste it first.

Do you think mass-hiring English teachers will work? The word “mass-hiring” itself makes my stomach churn. I think it has something to do with apples and pies.

Once again, good luck, Malaysia.