Education system is broken, time to fix it

 

When it comes to the subject of education, we tend to get personal. After all, many of us have children who are attending school.

In Malaysia, public schools are often the only choice parents have for their children.

Like other middle class parents, I too enrolled my daughter in a public school.

But in most public schools, enrolment can be very high, leaving the teachers little time to give each pupil individual attention.

However we cannot blame the teachers. What can they do, anyway?

Unfortunately there is another, more serious problem — the capability of our teachers.

I am still appalled by the lack of quality in some of our teachers when my daughter was going to school.

A teacher at her school just could not or would not converse with me in English. It was all the more shocking given the fact that she was supposed to be teaching science in English.

Naturally I could only assume that she either could not speak English fluently or she did not have the confidence to converse in the language.

Whichever it may be, it is totally unacceptable.

We are taxpayers. Our money is spent on schools to ensure that our children get the best education.

But the system has certainly failed our children.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is right to say that we should no longer be in a state of denial when it comes to the quality of our education system today.

But he must not forget that the rot has its roots at the primary school level, and it began a long time ago.

We can only speculate on the reasons for such a state of affairs.

Are our children’s teachers less dedicated than those we had when we were going to school?

Perhaps so. It is no secret that teaching as a vocation is, in most instances now, the last choice for those who have just left school and choosing a career path.

Hence the lack of dedication.

What can we do? Giving teachers better incentives would be a start.

Or we can look south to learn from a nation that has been so successful in educating its young.

Will Fadhlina Sidek succeed where a string of education ministers have failed?

We can only hope. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.