Quality of education system is a concern, says former UKM VC

 

While the SPM results showed an improvement in the country’s education, there is concern over the lack of interest among students in pursuing further studies, says Noor Azlan Ghazali. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: A former vice-chancellor of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) has questioned whether the 2022 SPM examination results released yesterday reflect the actual quality of the nation’s education system.

Noor Azlan Ghazali, who is also an economist, acknowledged that the 2022 SPM results showed an improvement in the country’s education.

“The education ministry says the quality of our national education meets international standards. Every year, we are told it is improving further, which is reassuring,” he said in a Facebook post.

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He also added that at the higher education level, public universities such as UKM, Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) all fared well in the Quacquarelli Symonds’ (QS) World University Rankings.

Noor Azlan Ghazali.

However, he said Malaysia was lagging behind in the area of global competitiveness.

Citing the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) World Competitiveness Ranking, he pointed out that the quality of Malaysian talent has been declining year-on-year.

“In 2013, Malaysia was ranked among the top 14 in the world. However, in the latest rankings, we have fallen to 36, which is alarming,” said Noor Azlan, who is also the executive director of the National Economic Council.

He said that in early 2023, the statistics department estimated that  5.8% (1.9 million) of the Malaysian population have never attended school.

Some 170,000 primary school students were also noted to lack proficiency in reading.

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In May, the education ministry reported that almost 50% (180,680 students) of the 2021 SPM graduates were not keen to further their education.

“This extreme lack of interest is even more concerning because currently, skill workers make up only 28% of Malaysia’s workforce.

“This is significantly lower that the average in several developed countries, which stands at 53%,” said Noor Azlan.

He said the divergent conclusions drawn from the different indicators  were puzzling and gave rise to questions about the true standing of the country’s education system.

“We cannot continue like this. One moment we are proud of its excellence, and yet in the next we are told it is worrisome,” he said.

He stressed that producing high-quality talent is critical if Malaysia wishes to attain the status of being a developed and high-income nation. - FMT