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With an education minister and ministry’s mentality that support this in schools, what hope is there for improving the country’s education system or academic excellence.
Education ministry’s hopeless empty promises, assurances
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 25, 2024: How often and how long have Malaysians endured the empty promises of the federal governments in reforming the education system to improve academic excellence?
Sixty-seven years after Merdeka, where is Malaysia’s education standard? Mediocre, to say the least.
Eeven Malaysia’s 10th Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has lamented the country’s failed education system after the country recorded its biggest Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) score drop compared to neighbours.
And the ministry has again come up with another round of “empty promises” that it is studying the Pisa findings to ensure that Malaysia is on par with other Asean nations.
Is that so? How many times has the ministry said that?
And will anything positive really come out of this round of “propaganda”?
With an Education Minister, Fadhlina Sidek, and a ministry that support the promotion of violence and use of firearms in school, there is absolutely no progress in sight.
The mentality for academic excellence is just ground zero.
In short, the ruling elite just don’t have the political will to do the right thing, and their refusal to recognise the crucial merits or meritocracy.
No News Is Bad News reproduces below The Star report on what the ministry and minister are now saying and report on Pisa:
M’sia looking to improve Pisa scores
By REBECCA RAJAENDRAM and STEPHANIE AERIA
Sunday, 25 Feb 2024
Back to basics: Fadhlina delivering a talk on the new 2027 School Curriculum in December. — Filepic
Ministry studying strengths, weaknesses to beef up quality of education
THE Education Ministry is studying the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) 2022 findings to make sure that Malaysia is on par with other Asean nations.
The ministry, in an email response to StarEdu, said it is in the midst of identifying the strengths and weaknesses revealed in the Pisa report issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The report will be used as a basis for discussions and interventions to ensure that Malaysia’s performance is comparable to its Asean neighbours, said the ministry.
Globally, Pisa 2022 scores fell compared to 2018 as nations scrambled to cope with online lessons and the loss of learning brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. Malaysia was no exception.
The country, however, recorded the biggest drop in the Asean region compared to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
While the overall scores of Indonesia and Thailand decreased by 4.09% and 4.36% respectively, Malaysia dropped 6.26% from 431 in 2018 to 404 in 2022, StarPlus reported last month.
Vietnam’s 2018 results are considered internationally incomparable but it had only dropped 0.7%, from 2016 to 2022, to 468.
Pisa is administered by the OECD every three years on 15-year-olds in both OECD and non-OECD countries.
Responding to the StarPlus interactive data story (see QR code), the ministry said plans are underway to conduct meetings and engagement sessions with stakeholders to break down the Pisa findings announced in December last year.
This, it said, would be used as a basis for improving the quality of education and the country’s performance in the upcoming 2025 Pisa assessment.
“A webinar with OECD will be held some time this month, as well as engagement sessions with agencies within and outside the ministry on the importance of international benchmarking exercises,” the ministry said, adding that the Pisa 2022 National Report will be released in December this year.
On a separate matter, the ministry assured parents that the incoming 2027 School Curriculum would be appropriate to the age and level of development of students.
This, said the ministry, was among the requests made by parents and other stakeholders in its nationwide “2027 Schooling Curriculum Implementation Survey” (see infobox) conducted last August.
In a summary of the survey results provided to StarEdu, the ministry said stakeholders were concerned that the curriculum level was too high for students.
A total of 56% of the survey respondents said the primary school curriculum content was not appropriate while 45% felt the same about the secondary school curriculum.
“Some respondents disagreed with the appropriateness of the content level in each subject thus (the new curriculum) needs to be adapted to the appropriate level of students’ cognitive development,” it said in an email reply.
The ministry added that parents, who made up about 45% of the respondents, want the future curriculum to also be “relevant and flexible” besides emphasising character and ethics, and prioritising literacy and numeracy.
The ministry also said the 2027 School Curriculum will have seven competencies in its framework, including digital literacy.
Digital literacy includes data management, information and technology, computational thinking, digital content creation and communication.
“Digitally fluent students will be able to effectively utilise various technologies in their lives, thereby contributing to the collective national and global well-being,” it said.
The new curriculum will also include integrated learning, character education and project-based learning (PBL).
“Integrated learning is an instructional approach that connects various disciplines to create a relevant and meaningful learning experience.
“As for character education, all teachers are responsible to inculcate noble character among their students, but a particular slot will be allocated in the timetable to carry out practical hands-on activities in a structured and planned manner with a focus on socio-emotions,” it said.The ministry said PBL promotes flexibility in the curriculum by integrating diverse content, encouraging interdisciplinary connections, fostering student autonomy, allowing flexible pacing, adapting to students’ needs and interests, offering various assessment methods, and fostering continuous improvement and reflection.
On Dec 7, Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek said elements in the new school curriculum can address Malaysia’s sub-standard performance in Pisa.“We are aware that Malaysia’s achievements in the international assessment “Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss)” and Pisa have not yet reached the top third position as desired in the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025.
“The Education Ministry has also examined the World Bank Report, which shows that there is still learning poverty among students that needs attention.
“The new curriculum needs to focus back on the basic literacy skills of reading, writing and counting (3M) so that this learning poverty can be reduced,” she said in her speech on the 2027 School Curriculum in Putrajaya.
‘2027 Schooling Curriculum Implementation Survey’ findings
Problems with the current curriculum
➤ Too many subjects.➤ Curriculum content is overloaded.
➤ The content level of the curriculum is too high.
➤ The time allocation needs to be revised due to the dense content.
The way forward
➤ Revise elements in the new curriculum regarding appropriateness of level, timing, number of subjects and content.
➤ Develop a new curriculum framework that includes aspects desired by the community and global needs.
➤ Increase community awareness on the changes.
What the 2027 curriculum should look like
➤ Needs to be relevant, flexible and appropriate to the age and level of development of the students.
➤ Emphasis should be given to character education and development of ethics.
➤ The mastery of literacy and numeracy should be prioritised.
Source: Education Ministry
M’sia records biggest drop compared to neighbours in Pisa scores
Globally, Pisa 2022 scores fell as compared to the 2018 as nations scrambled to cope with online lessons and the loss of learning brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. Malaysia was no exception.
Though putting in their best efforts, Malaysian 15-year-olds did not do as well as their other peers around Asean in the PISA 2022 exams. PHOTO: BERNAMA/ THE STAR
January 25, 2024
PETALING JAYA – The latest Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) scores tumbled across the Asean region, with Malaysia recording the biggest drop compared to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Globally, Pisa 2022 scores fell as compared to the 2018 as nations scrambled to cope with online lessons and the loss of learning brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. Malaysia was no exception.
While the overall scores of Indonesia and Thailand decreased by 4.09% and 4.36% respectively, Malaysia dropped 6.26% from 431 in 2018 to 404 in 2022.
Singapore, however, held on to the region’s top spot, with Brunei charting the sharpest spike from 423 to 439 (3.78%).
Although the Philippines and Cambodia were at the bottom of the scoresheet, both nations saw an increase across all three domains assessed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – reading, science and mathematics, according to Pisa results released last month.
Pisa is administered by the OECD every three years on 15-year-olds in both OECD and non-OECD countries.
The only domain Singapore dropped in is reading, even that is a slight 1.09%
The biggest factor in the drop in marks across the globe is the learning loss caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent school closures.
Yet, Malaysia had seen its scores drop more intensely, with our students faring the worst in reading in 2022.
Among the factors that led to Malaysia’s drop, said Universiti Utara Malaysia College of Arts and Sciences School of Education senior lecturer Dr Muhammad Noor Abdul Aziz, are changes in the curriculum and modifications to the academic calendar.
These changes, he said, may have affected the depth and coverage of certain topics taught during lessons as schools were forced to move online.
He said this potentially led to learning gaps that were made obvious in the Pisa assessment.
“The ministry’s curriculum department had called on schools to accommodate online learning and to ensure that students were able to catch up with their lessons but these plans may have been derailed either due to students not paying attention or worse, not attending the online lessons altogether,” he told StarPlus.
Muhammad Noor said insufficient teacher training may not have prepared them for a complete shift to virtual classrooms.
“Teachers may have had some training to embed technology and online learning in some topics in the lessons but the training may not be enough for teachers to effectively conduct the entire syllabus via remote learning.
Teachers may have faced challenges in adapting to online teaching methods, and not all educators may have had sufficient training or resources to effectively conduct virtual classes,” he said, adding that the move to remote learning may have also posed challenges to teachers in assessing student progress and understanding, potentially leading to gaps in identifying areas of improvement.
He said countries like Singapore consistently do well in Pisa because they place a strong emphasis on teacher quality, recruitment, and professional development.
“Although Cambodia is not at the top of the heap, its government has been continuously investing in improving educational infrastructure, including the construction of schools and the provision of resources, as well as addressing challenges such as a high dropout rate, particularly in rural areas,” he said.
Universiti Sains Malaysia School of Educational Studies senior lecturer cum Bachelor of Science with Education Programme chairperson Dr Nur Jahan Ahmad said Singaporean students possess and demonstrate the highest-level of thinking skills and reasoning process as compared to other students from other Asean nations.
“Student who perform well in reading, mathematics and science tend to apply critical thinking skills more than the ones who do not.
“Also, achieving higher results in Pisa indicates that the students have a high ability to apply thinking and reasoning processes to solve complex real-world problems,” she said.
She said Pisa questions usually involve problem-solving and higher-order thinking skills (HOTS), typically presented in the form of complex texts.
“HOTS items in Pisa requires problem solving and the students must have a strong understanding of the given texts and reading habits will benefit them in doing so.
“Vietnam has a policy that heavily promotes reading habits so that is a possible reason for their improved achievement in reading,” she said, while calling on the Education Ministry to put more effort into initiating programmes that encourage intensive and extensive readings simultaneously in schools, communities, and households.
Such efforts and programmes should utilise both online and printed resources.
Newspapers, magazines and books – be it comic, fiction, or non-fiction, and ebooks, enews and estories are all important in cultivating threading habit, she said.
“The ministry should plan and implement reading projects that would give students easy and unlimited access to physical and virtual reading materials at schools, local community centres and homes,” she said.
Muhammad Noor stressed on the need to improve our evaluation and assessment mechanisms.
While exams and tests are important, he said alternative assessments that evaluate critical thinking and problem solving skills are equally important.
He also said the curriculum needs to be aligned to learning outcomes and this can be done by allowing students to be involved in projects and community engagement.
“This presents opportunities for students to gain from various learning platforms and will empower students to do better in the next Pisa,” he added.
On Dec 7, Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek said elements in the new school curriculum can address Malaysia’s sub-standard performance in Pisa.
“We are aware that Malaysia’s achievements in the international assessment ‘Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)’ and Pisa have not yet reached the top third position as desired in the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025.
“The Education Ministry has also examined the World Bank Report which shows that there is still learning poverty among students that needs attention.
“The new curriculum needs to focus back on the basic literacy skills of reading, writing and counting (3M) so that this learning poverty can be reduced,” she said in her speech on the 2027 School Curriculum in Putrajaya. - ANN
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