Education and child psychology experts have welcomed the government’s move to reintroduce standardised primary school exams, which are now set to take place in Year Four.
However, they have strongly cautioned against a “high-stakes” approach, which could lead to unnecessary stress and anxiety and diminish the policy’s effectiveness.
Education equity NGO Teach For Malaysia (TFM) said the Year Four assessments could identify learning gaps early, giving teachers a two-year window to intervene before students enter secondary school.
“Since the abolishment of UPSR and PT3, school-based assessments have faced issues of consistency and trust. Having the Year Four standardised assessment administered by the national exams board helps address this concern, providing some form of quality assurance and comparability,” they said.
However, TFM warned that the success of the policy depends on how parents, teachers, and students respond.
“If we treat it like a high-stakes exam (instead of merely checking whether a student needs help), then its value for supporting meaningful learning, closing gaps, and guiding interventions will be lost,” it said.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced the Year Four assessments on Jan 20 as part of the National Education Blueprint 2026-2035, saying they would identify weaknesses in reading, writing, and arithmetic early enough to enable remedial action before secondary school.
The move has since courted mixed reactions, with supporters arguing that it would help improve discipline and literacy rates, while criticisms have also been raised regarding the policy’s “hasty implementation”, which is scheduled to begin this year.
Acknowledging these concerns, experts nevertheless said the assessments could improve learning quality if used diagnostically rather than for ranking students.
“While the announcement is sudden, the assessment is intended to be diagnostic, reflecting students' usual learning rather than requiring intensive preparation.
“What could have been done better is to provide information in a clear, coherent, and timely manner to reduce anxiety and manage perceptions around the haste of its introduction,” said TFM.
Feasible implementation
Clinical psychologist Jama’atul ‘Adauyah Shafiee from Thrive Well agreed, saying if the assessment is truly diagnostic, implementation this year is feasible.
The key to avoiding anxiety, she said, is clearly conveying the assessment’s purpose to students, parents, and teachers.
“How you convey the information is crucial. But the only difference between this assessment and usual year-end assessments is that this one is regulated by the National Examinations Board,” she said.
Students from Year One to Year Six already sit for year-end assessments every year, she noted, and the standardised exams at Year Four should be treated the same way.
More important than the assessment itself, Jama’atul stressed, is what comes after: a robust plan to help struggling students.
“Any exam, at any age, and at any level, will not help improve learning unless the results are used for targeted intervention.
“If these exams are mainly for ranking or selecting students to enrol in good secondary schools, then most of the struggling students would not benefit.
“These exams are only effective if they can help identify students who are falling behind and provide useful data,” she stressed.
‘Focus on improving learning’
On whether standardised testing is even necessary, LeapEd Malaysia executive director Nina Adlan Disney said the assessment should focus on improving learning, not just measuring it.
Ideally, she added, Malaysia would move away from standardised exams altogether until SPM, but Malaysia’s education infrastructure still lacks the consistency for effective classroom-based assessments.
“When we introduce classroom-based assessments, it then comes down to teacher capacity, which is still very uneven… some schools do it well, but even within a single school, there are already so many differences even between classrooms themselves.
“We do not really have the rigour yet for effective classroom-based and school-based assessments, which is why there are calls for this return of standardised testing,” she said.
The stakes are high: Malaysia’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) scores remain below average, and a 2024 World Bank report found 42 percent of Malaysian students struggle with basic literacy.
Without early assessment, she said, struggling students continue progressing through school without mastering basic skills.
“Right now, many children are progressing through primary school into secondary education without mastering basic reading, writing, and numeracy skills.
“Ideally, teachers should be able to diagnose and address learning gaps within the classroom through individualised approaches, but the current system often fails to achieve this.
“Despite talk about holistic education, everything is still measured by exam results. What gets measured gets done, so schools focus on exam results without addressing underlying issues,” she said.
Follow-up support needed
Asked whether the assessments would improve Malaysia’s Pisa ranking and literacy rates, both Jama’atul and TFM returned to their central concern: without follow-up intervention, the policy will fail.
The assessments alone are not enough, they stressed, and must be part of a broader education strategy.
“If there is no follow-up support, no effort to address education inequality and child poverty, the exam alone is unlikely to improve learning outcomes,” Jama’atul said.
TFM agreed the assessments alone will not improve outcomes: “There are many more initiatives and strategies outlined in the new Education Plan. But the real test will be how well these measures are implemented and how effectively they complement each other,” they said. - Mkini
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