National exams needed to gauge students' skills

UPSR exams should be maintained to gauge primary students performance in reading, writing and arithmetics (3R) before they are promoted to secondary school education, a former educationist toldMalaysiakini today.

Former National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) secretary-general N Siva Subramaniam said that many students have not mastered the 3Rs sufficiently due to the automatic promotion of students to secondary school.

Siva (right) said that during Mahathir Mohammad's term of premiership, there was a cabinet committee report stressing the importance of pupils in primary schools having the basic knowledge of the 3Rs before taking up their secondary school education.

However, this cabinet finding was not enforced at the primary school level, which resulted in many pupils entering secondary school without a solid foundation in these areas.

Another factor in maintaining the UPSR examination is that there will be a level playing field for pupils in vernacular schools to compete with pupils from national primary schools for entry into premier secondary schools.

The argument is that if there is no UPSR examination, then how will the education department officials gauge the education performance of pupils to streamline them into secondary schools.

Examination system 'boring and outdated'

However, Siva is in favour of scrapping the PMR, saying it serves no other purpose than giving more stress to students in an already examination orientated education system.

He said there is no consistency in the country's education system, which undergoes several policy changes each time a new education minister takes control.

"There are flip flops in the education policies every now and then which only creates confusion among the students and as a result the standard of education is deteriorating in the country," he said.

"Our present education system does not suit the needs of the present generation, who find the system boring and outdated.

"This weakness in the education system can be overcome if the government instead of imposing reforms at the top level, but instead goes to the ground to get the feedback from educationists, parents and teachers."

He said there is a need to change the education system from an examination-oriented system to a creative thinking system that is tailored to modern needs.

"Now we are only creating bookworm zombies who only memorise to pass the examination but have no creativity or analytical thinking to contribute to the economic progress of the nation," he warned.

"The government must study the British, Canadian and American education systems and formulate a new policy that is suitable for the needs of our developing nation."

According to Siva, the over-emphasis on good exam results has resulted in the mushrooming of thousands of tuition centres - many of which are sub-standard and managed by business-minded people whose main aim is to make money at the expense of students.

Another benefactor from this exam oriented craze, are the book publishers who produce thousands of guide books - most of which are sub-standard - only to cash in on this social craze, he said.

Meanwhile, NUTP secretary-general Lok Yim Pheng (left) said there is a need to check on the reliability and reality of examinations in the country.

Echoing Siva's opinion, Lok said that in a personal capacity she thinks that there should be a check and balance system to assess the education progress of students who have had 12 years of education starting from kindergarten to form five.

But she did not want to comment further on the UPSR and PMR controversies ahead of NUTP's decision on the matter.

NUTP are expected to decide on whether it will abolish these examinations during its executive meeting in Kuala Lumpur on July 3.

Time for change

Another former NUTP deputy secretary, general II S Sundralingam said the country has been wrapped up in a cocoon of examination orientation for the past 50 years.

"The present exam oriented system only encourages remembering and memorising but not intellectual creative ideas," he said.

"Another negative point of such a system is encouraging plagiarism which will not reflect the student's real academic performance."

He said examination results does not reflect the character of students as for example a student who obtained A1 in Moral Education might have bad habits like smoking or drinking liquor.

This vocal educationist says he wants Malaysia to follow the footsteps of developed countries like Hong Kong and European countries like Denmark which have done away with exam oriented systems in their education policies.

"The ministry should opt for assessment tests in schools whereby students are instructed and guided by the teachers, instead of pressuring students to obtain A1s in government
examinations."

courtesy of Malaysiakini