Teachers fear big drop in Form Three performance this year

Form Three students will have to sit for exams after two years without exams or quizzes, thanks to the new SBA system. – The Malaysian Insider pic, June 10, 2014.

Teachers are predicting a sharp plunge in scores for this year’s national Form Three examination, and they blame this on the haphazard way the government has rolled out the School Based Assessment (SBA) system.

The teachers said that student performance this year would generally be lower than that of previous years, as the over 420,000 Form Three students are the first batch affected by the SBA.

Under the SBA, there are no exams or quizzes throughout the school year in Form One and Form Two. Teachers worry that this lack of exposure to preparing and taking examinations would impair students’ ability to sit for the PT3 (Form Three Assessment).

Added to this hurdle is the fact that teachers only received the PT3 exam formats two weeks ago. So they were unable to use the new format in their recently-concluded mid-term exams to prepare their students for the PT3.

How Form Three students do on the new PT3 will affect the new controversial SBA system and the reforms boasted in the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2035, the Najib administration’s ambitious education initiative.

“Teachers feel that their students will do badly in the mid-term exams because they lack exposure to taking exams in the first place,” said Mohd Nor Izzat Mohd Johari (pic, right), who teaches art at a secondary school in Pahang, and who is the spokesman for teachers pressure group, Suara Guru-Masyarakat Malaysia (SGMM).

SGMM had led the charge against the way the SBA system was implemented, resulting in the Education Ministry suspending it to address grouses raised by teachers.

Teachers complained they were being burdened with too much paperwork, and said they were worried students were not motivated to do well academically under the SBA, where test and scores were done away with.

Coupled with the teachers’ own lack of knowledge about the PT3, Nor Izzat believes that many students would not do well in the exam as they would not be adequately prepared.

He said the Education Ministry only released the PT3 exam format on May 31, instead of April 1 as originally scheduled.

The original release date was crucial as teachers wanted to design the questions for the mid-term exams - which typically take place in early
May before the May 30 mid-term school holidays - based on the PT3 format, he said.

“Some teachers even waited until the last minute to draw up their mid-term exam questions as they were waiting for the ministry. They wanted to prepare their students for what is in the PT3," Nor Izzat added.

The PT3 exam replaces the PMR (Lower Secondary Assessment) exam which had been in use since 1993.

But like the PMR, PT3 results will affect which streams students are eligible for when they enrol into Form Four.

PT3 is scheduled to begin in July and end in October, and as such, Nor Izzat doubts there would be enough time to prepare once classes resume on June 16.

Assessments for geography and living skills begin in July, requiring students to complete coursework or a project.

Nor Izzat said the staggered deadlines for these projects under the new system present problems.

“In the past, the exams board gave every school the same deadline and the coursework assessment took place in the first half of the year. This time, each school is given the autonomy to finish the coursework at their own pace.”

He claimed this could lead to students plagiarising the work of their peers from other schools who completed their projects early.

Even with the PT3 formats being out, a Kelantan-based English teacher said students in Form Three were still unprepared for the PT3 as they did not have exams for the first two years.

Under the SBA, students are assessed on the spot after a lesson is delivered to determine their level of competency. They are graded according to six bands from the lowest (band one) to the highest (band six).

“If the ministry wanted to do away with exams, then they should have done away with all the exams. Now at the end of Form Three there is a big exam.

“So teachers are complaining what is the objective behind the new system?

"What are we trying to aim for?” asked the teacher who requested anonymity.

“Teachers will implement what the government tells us to do, but the results may not be the same as what the government hopes for.”

For Nor Izzat, the SBA and the PT3 are good because they teach kids critical thinking skills and ensure that what they learned in class could be applied in the real world.

The problem lies with its poor implementation ever since it started in 2011.

“For me, we should start afresh with next year’s Form One batch and use the new SBA. We also must have pilot programmes, otherwise we can’t judge whether the system is working or not, or how to fix it.”

- TMI