No News Is Bad News
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UPDATE: Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek seem to be dodging the issue of deteriorating academic achievements of Malaysia.
All she said was that the ministry (also read as Government) prefer to highlight the 90% of students who passed their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examination, instead of focusing on the 8.4% who failed.
But she also failed to deny online news portal Free Malaysia Today’s report that 23,358 candidates failed History, while 9,642 failed Bahasa Malaysia.
Those who fail the two subjects will not be able to obtain their SPM certificate.
We prefer to highlight those who pass SPM, not those who fail, says Fadhlina
The education minister says the focus has always been on those who pass the exam so that the ministry can ‘move forward’.
Chia Wan Rou and Siti Khadijah Norhisham - 22 Jun 2023, 7:04pm
Education minister Fadhlina Sidek said the ministry would intervene and help those who failed their SPM. (Bernama pic)
PETALING JAYA: The education ministry said it would prefer to highlight the 90% of students who passed their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examination, instead of focusing on the 8.4% who failed.
Its minister, Fadhlina Sidek, said the focus on those who passed the examination was so the ministry could “move forward”.
“And that is what we want to highlight,” she said, referring to the percentage of those who passed their SPM.
“As for the rest, we will intervene. We need to focus on the next step,” she told reporters after launching a legal aid project by PKR here.
Fadhlina said this when asked to comment on those who had failed their SPM.
A total of 373,974 candidates sat for SPM last year.
Earlier today, FMT reported that 23,358 candidates failed History, while 9,642 failed Bahasa Malaysia.
Those who fail these two subjects will not be able to obtain their SPM certificate.
Malaysia’s failing academic performance, who to blame?
KUALA LUMPUR, June 22, 2023: Of the 373,974 candidates who sat for the SPM last year (2022), 42.9% of the candidates, or 160,435 students, failed at least one subject.
That includes about 90,000 candidates who failed Mathematics and 89,752 who failed English.
Mathematics and English are core subjects that determine the quality and growth of Malaysia’s human capital in Science and Technology in the fast evolving global 21st Century Digital Era.
Is it then a wonder that Malaysia’s education standard is not in the World’s Top 50. The latest statistics available are the 2015 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests, but the focus then were on more affluent industrialised countries.
What must worry educationists and the Education Ministry is the fact that 140,474 candidates failed to obtain their SPM certificates after flopping in Bahasa Melayu or History from 2019 to 2021.
As long as Malaysia fails to lift its education standards and upskill its human capital development to meet current science and technology demands and industry, Malaysia will fail to attract new and valuable investments, both domestic and foreign.
On the local political outlook, who will the Taliban-like PAS and Perikatan Nasional (PN) racial and religious bigots blame for the continuous slide in academic achievements?
Of course not their previous governments nor their leaders, but the current Anwar Ibrahim-led Unity Government which took office in November (2022), about six months ago.
Educationists and the Education and Higher Education Ministries must acknowledge their failures, accept responsibilities and buck up. No excuses, period.
No News Is Bad News reproduces below several news reports on the issue:
90,000 failed SPM maths, 52,000 failed English, says NGO
Untuk Malaysia says overall, the 2022 SPM results showed that 42.9% of the candidates, or 160,435 students, failed at least one subject.
Siti Khadijah Norhisham - 22 Jun 2023, 11:00am
Last year, 33,906 SPM candidates did not get their certificates as they failed either the Bahasa Malaysia or History paper, according to Untuk Malaysia. (Bernama pic)
PETALING JAYA: Close to 90,000 candidates who sat for last year’s SPM exam failed Mathematics while over 52,000 did not pass English, according to an analysis of the results conducted by NGO Untuk Malaysia.
Of the 373,974 candidates who sat for the SPM last year, a total of 89,752 candidates (24.3%) failed Mathematics and 52,674 candidates (14.3%) did not pass English.
“This analysis was conducted based on the SPM 2022 examination results analysis report published by the Malaysian Examination Board (LPM) and the announcement of the results by the education director-general on the education ministry’s Facebook page on June 8,” Untuk Malaysia said.
It added that 113,759 candidates achieved grade A, A+ or A- in Mathematics, and 91,351 candidates achieved the same in English, which represented 30.8% and 24.8% of the total candidates, respectively.
For other core subjects, Untuk Malaysia reported that 27,621 candidates failed Science (compared with 56,624 who obtained grade A or A+ or A-); 23,358 candidates failed History (94,402 with grade A or A+ or A-); 9,642 candidates failed Bahasa Malaysia, (118,297 with grade A or A+ or A-); and 24,304 candidates failed Islamic Education (69,005 with grade A or A+ or A-).
Overall, Untuk Malaysia reported that 42.9% of the candidates, or 160,435 students, failed at least one subject.
A study by the NGO on school dropouts published in January reported that 140,474 candidates failed to obtain their SPM certificates after failing in Bahasa Melayu or History from 2019 to 2021.
The three-year data was taken from SPM results analysis prepared by the LPM, which is the main oversight body for national examinations.
Untuk Malaysia also reported that for the 2022 SPM exam, 33,906 candidates did not get their certificate as they failed the Bahasa Malaysia or History paper.
A total of 45,514 candidates did not receive their SPM certificate in 2021.
Malaysia Ranked 52nd in Global Education Ratings
Malaysia Ranked 52nd in Global Education Ratings My 2 Cents View
World Class Education? Malaysia Ranked 52nd Again In Global Education Ratings
Published on Wednesday, 13 May 2015 11:19
Written by Ashraf Wahab
KUALA LUMPUR – The biggest global ranking on education quality has just been published, but while the top five spots in the world is dominated by Asian countries – spearheaded by Singapore – our beloved Malaysia is languishing in a dismal position at 52 out of 72 countries.
The rankings, conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) think tank, lists down 76 countries and has Singapore in first place, followed by Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.
Countries such as the UK and US didn’t fare too well, as they are positioned at number 20 and 28 respectively.
The analysis is based on test scores of 15 year-olds in maths and science and argues that the standard of education is a “powerful predictor of the wealth that countries will produce in the long run”.
This is not the first time OECD has come up with education rankings like this.
They have previously done rankings based on PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests, but the focus then were on more affluent industrialised countries.
This latest league table includes a wider range of countries, with OECD’s education director Andreas Schleicher calling it “the first time we have a truly global scale of the quality of education”.
The countries which made it into the top 20 rankings based on maths and science performance of 15-year-olds are as follows:
1. Singapore
2. Hong Kong
3. South Korea
4. Japan
5. Taiwan
6. Finland
7. Estonia
8. Switzerland
9. Netherlands
10. Canada
11. Poland
12. Vietnam
13. Germany
14. Australia
15. Ireland
16. Belgium
17. New Zealand
18. Slovenia
19. Austria
20. United Kingdom
Malaysia: World Class Education?
During the 2012 PISA rankings released two years ago, Malaysia was ranked 52nd out of 65 countries and performed the second worst in Southeast Asia behind the likes of Vietnam and Thailand.
Last year after the rankings were released, Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar heavily criticised the Education Ministry and called for a reform on the country’s education system.
“I think our ministers also suffer from the same poor reading skills because I can see no developed country below Malaysia in the 2012 PISA ranking,” she said.
“Cosmetic transformations alone will not prepare our children to compete internationally. We must be brave and stop mixing politics into the education system,” she added.
Pandan MP RAfizi Ramli also agreed with Izzah, asking: “How does Vietnam, with limited resources, lesser infrastructure and an economy that is smaller than Malaysia’s, can have an education system that surpasses ours?”
In the new OECD ranking, Vietnam is placed at the 12th position, just like other Asian countries who are rated highly on the list , with the exception of Malaysia.
“If you go to an Asian classroom you’ll find teachers who expect every student to succeed. There’s a lot of rigour, a lot of focus and coherence,” says Schleicher.
“These countries are also very good at attracting the most talented teachers in the most challenging classrooms, so that every student has access to excellent teachers,” he added.
What’s in store next for Malaysia?
Questions remain on how seriously we should take these rankings.
Well, Schleicher gives us something to think about by saying: “Today’s 15 year-olds with poor problem-solving skills will become tomorrow’s adults struggling to find or keep a good job.”
He goes on to add: “Poor education policies and practices leave many countries in what amounts to a permanent state of economic recession.”
Recently the Sultan of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar called for the country to follow Singapore’s education system by using English as a medium of instruction.
“Singapore’s system has proven to be successful… (it has) helped to unite the races (there),” he said.
With Singapore coming out on top of the recent OECD rankings, this might actually prove his point!
Source - malaysiandigest.com
Is our education system still 'world class'?
Ong Kian Ming
Published: May 14, 2015 10:36 AM
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Updated: 1:38 PM
MP SPEAKS In a recently released Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) rankings in Science and Math, which is the most comprehensive study to date, the top 5 places were all taken by Asian countries, namely Singapore (1st), Hong Kong (2nd), South Korea (3rd), Japan and Taiwan (joint 4th).
Meanwhile, Malaysia finds itself being ranked 52 out of 76 countries.
In Southeast Asia, Malaysia is ranked below not just Singapore but also Vietnam (12th) and Thailand (47th).
Malaysia is also ranked below Ukraine (38th), Turkey (41st), UAE (45th) and Kazakhstan (49th).
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The full details of this study will only be released at next week’s World Education Forum 2015 meeting in Seoul, Korea where the UN, led by UNESCO, will deliberate and decide on the post-2015 education agenda to replace the targets and objectives set out in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
But the initial findings should send a strong message to our education ministers that we are far from being anywhere close to a "world class" education system at the primary, secondary or tertiary levels.
The fact that our ministers still insist that we have a "world class" education system, in the face of overwhelming evidence stating otherwise, shows that we are still not acknowledging the full extent of the educational challenges we are facing.
Lesson from Sweden
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The lesson of Sweden should be a lesson to our ministers.
Sweden used to have one of the better education systems among OECD countries but experienced a sharp decline in its PISA and TIMSS scores from 2000 onwards.
This decline prompted the Swedish government to ask OECD to review its education system in 2014.
In this latest OECD rankings, Sweden came in at the 35th position, one of the lowest ranked OECD countries.
In the case of Malaysia, if our policymakers do not acknowledge the weaknesses in our current education system, we may even fall further behind our Asian neighbours and continue to lose out in terms of our economic competitiveness.
ONG KIAN MING is MP for Serdang.
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