‘Muhyiddin worst Education Minister ever’

Muhyiddin Yassin's silence on students' poor performance in international maths and science study makes him the "worst Education Minister ever", says DAP.

PETALING JAYA: DAP today slammed Muhyiddin Yassin for keeping mum over the recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2011, in which Malaysian students suffered the biggest drop in test scores among all countries for Maths and Science between 1999 and 2011.

In a joint statement today, DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua and DAP election strategist in KL Ong Kian Ming accused the Education Minister of purposely keeping mum on the issue — “as if it will blow away just as long as he does not comment on it”.

“If there ever was a yardstick of a non-physical national disaster, this is it. At least two generations of young Malaysians will fail to achieve their potential as a result of rapidly declining education standards,” Pua and Ong said today in a press statement.

In the results released a month ago Malaysia’s ranking in Math fell from 10th in 2003 to 26th in 2011 while its ranking in Science fell by an ever greater margin, from 20th in 2003 to 32nd in 2011.

“The number of students who scored “Below Low” for Mathematics increased from only seven per cent in 1999 to an incredible 35 per cent in 2011. For Science, the percentage rocketed up from 13 to 38,” they said.

“If the students who scored “Low” were taken into consideration, 64 and 66 per cent of Malaysian students scored “Low” and “Below Low” in Mathematics and Science respectively,” they added.

Pua and Ong said it was ironic that Muhyiddin had recently flown on Jan 17 to the United States to receive and honorary doctorate from the United States Sports Academy for his ‘Satu Murid, Satu Sukan’ initiative, aimed to ‘enhance physical education to help in the building of a nation’.

“While Tan Sri Muyhiddin is being ‘honoured’ with a doctorate for this supposed ‘achievements’ in developing sports in schools, our students continue to be ‘dishonoured’ by a Minister of Education who has failed them miserably in the academic arena,” they said.

They claimed Muhyiddin’s only achievements to date have been the controversial decision to enforce history as a compulsory examination subject for SPM and to scrap the national examinations at UPSR and PMR levels.

“The preliminary education blueprint which has been launched to date fails to aggressively address the drastic decline in our standards,” they accused.

“Neither of these will serve to improve the standards of education in Malaysia, while it may arguably make our students worse off than their current deteriorating predicament.”

The two DAP leaders urged Muhyiddin to immediately recognise what they termed as “complete failing of our national education system” and to put a halt to the decline of the country’s education system.

“His shattering silence on the disastrous TIMSS 2011 results for Malaysian students will soon earn him the ignominy of becoming the worst Education Minister ever,” they said.