The Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) results do not reflect the real state of Malaysian education as students do well in the local exam but perform poorly on the world stage, an opposition lawmaker said today.
Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar questioned if Putrajaya was trying to pull the wool over people's eyes about the real state of education in the country by manipulating the SPM results.
The 2013 SPM results released recently showed an overall improvement over the previous year, where a total of 13,970 candidates obtained distinctions in all subjects compared with 13,720 in 2012.
The results also showed a better performance in Bahasa Melayu, English and Science, and although Mathematics results declined slightly, there was improvement in 55 subjects, including Additional Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Additional Science.
In a statement, Nurul Izzah said that it was difficult to be convinced of this good showing since the passing marks and grades were a government secret.
"How can we be convinced that results show a real improvement when the passing marks and examination grades are secrets protected under the Official Secrets Act?
"The rakyat should in fact be able to evaluate to what extent the results can be deemed satisfactory in the context of the true achievements in national education," she added.
Nurul Izzah said that in the latest SPM results, the number of students who passed had dropped to 85.5% compared with 91.2% in 2012.
She added that since many students – 68,208 out of 470,395 – had failed the examination, the Education Ministry should investigate the reasons for this.
According to Nurul Izzah, a different picture of the standard of Malaysian students always emerged when compared on the international stage, namely the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results.
In the 2011 TIMSS results, Malaysia’s world ranking in Mathematics and Science dropped during the 2003-2011 period, with Mathematics slipping from 10th to 26th place, and Science from 20th to 32nd place.
In the PISA 2012, Malaysia was ranked 55th out of the 65 countries surveyed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
In the PISA 2012, Malaysia was ranked 55th out of the 65 countries surveyed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
In comparison, neighbouring country Singapore was ranked No.2 worldwide, while Vietnam, a low-income country, performed better than Malaysia by grabbing 17th spot.
"This only proves that the SPM results do not give us the true picture, it does not reveal the true standards of Malaysian students in education," she said.
Given such a scenario, Nurul Izzah said there was an urgent need for the Education Minister to discuss with stakeholders, including members of the teaching profession, politicians and government representatives, to find the best solution to address this decline in standards.
She added that she had written to Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin on this.
She added that she had written to Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin on this.
She also said that it was imperative that Putrajaya take a more open and inclusive approach in coming up with education policies so that Malaysian students could have a fair chance on the world education stage. – March 22, 2014.
Education has been suffering since 1969 - 45 years. The Mission, Chinese and Tamil schools have undergone BN or "Benign Neglect" treatment and either had to become more self-reliant or close their doors. Indoctrination of the young has been a key plank of Umno's plan, since May 13th 1969, to :
(1) stealthily subdue and marginalize the non-Malays;
(2) winning over/retaining Malay base by outdoing PAS in becoming more Islamic while actually the Umno elite are generally completely Westernized and don't give a damn for religion
(3) ensuring a host of policies to nurture children of the Umno elite and clever Malays through heavy funding of Residential Schools and imported British" Native English" speakers
An outlandish system of preferences and bias is used to make Education another vehicle to maintain Malay domination.
"Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair!" the three witches cried and MacMalay listened, nodding.
(1) stealthily subdue and marginalize the non-Malays;
(2) winning over/retaining Malay base by outdoing PAS in becoming more Islamic while actually the Umno elite are generally completely Westernized and don't give a damn for religion
(3) ensuring a host of policies to nurture children of the Umno elite and clever Malays through heavy funding of Residential Schools and imported British" Native English" speakers
An outlandish system of preferences and bias is used to make Education another vehicle to maintain Malay domination.
"Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair!" the three witches cried and MacMalay listened, nodding.
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