Overhaul the whole education system

The government has proposed to do away with UPSR and PMR examinations.

The kids will like it, of course, and many parents will welcome it, too.

However, I think any removal of these examinations should be coupled with a total overhaul of our education system, which at the present moment is producing –sorry to say– mediocre students; students who may get all As but cannot even write a coherent essay or cannot even pinpoint where is Malawi….  There are exceptions of course but these are real minority . I think many of those in the 40s and 50s will agree that in the 60s and 70s, even students with average results have better general knowledge than the students now.

So the thing is the whole system must be overhauled and the general lowering of standards of students should not be blamed on examinations such as UPSR and PMR  alone.

One model which the government should look at is the Finnish Model. Finland has consistently be ranked as the country with the best education system.

The Finnish system consists of one year of preschool at age 6. This is followed by 9 years of compulsory basic education. After the 9th year, students can opt for 3 years of higher secondary education or a 3 year vocational school. The curriculum is such that those from vocational school can switch back to upper secondary and vice versa, and also those who finish in one branch  can go back to finish the other branch if they so wish . Both branches  can go to university or polytechnic with bachelor’s or master’s degree.

Children in Finland are not graded until the 5th grade. For the first 4 grades, only the teachers know how a child is doing, and all the teachers of a particular class will meet weekly  to discuss the progress and remedy for children under their care. The parents as well as the students are not told how they are faring, and this helps build up self esteem and confidence of  a child , and cultivates a life long habit of treating learning and knowledge seeking as fun and as something most important in life.

The teachers of a particular class make the decision of how fast or how slow to go on their teaching, and they run the class with almost total autonomy.

Of course in the higher grades, there are assessment examinations, and Finland too have a national examination. By then the students are all well developed and able to cope with the heavy load in their higher secondary years, and the wide range of studies in higher secondary years enable them to switch to vocational schools and vice versa without being handicapped in any way.

The upper secondary school education completes with a matriculation examination, which is a national examination.

Education in Finland is regarded as egalitarian in which no tuition fee is collected. Students in the primary and secondary stage are also given free meals.

Any wonder why they , as a small nation, sell a brand of mobile phone which is better than most produced in big countries like US and Japan?

The teachers are of course well qualified, most of them with master’s degree. And well paid too. Because of the high productivity and versatility of the teachers, education expense per capita is not necessary excessive.

Perhaps, we should emulate the Finns. Even if we have to spend more initially to train good teachers by sending some of them overseas for specialise training, the cost is worth it in the long run, since excellent teachers will produce excellent students; excellent students will become excellent teachers themselves and the cycle repeats. It is better than spending billions on useless projects like the proposed 800 millions new Parliament etc.

Education is an investment. Education is about the future of the country. Education is about lifting people from poverty.

Ultimately the success of a country depends mainly on the success of its education system.