First things first. What is the basic function of schools? Many would think education. But in many countries, including Malaysia, schools are also a place of indoctrination. But the real function of schools should be learning. Kids attend school to learn and to learn how to learn.
Who caused these problems which beset our education system? It's the adults. The problem is not so much on the syllabus or system or streams, but in the people. The very fact that some of these people think that schools are the solution to their problems is enough to convince many that nothing will change at best, or decline further at worst.
Which is why, adults are the biggest hypocrites. They are so prejudiced in their thinking that instead of identifying the cause, they rather do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
Let's take the popular view of using schools to foster unity among races for example. The root cause is the adults. But the treatment is administered to the kids? The logic escapes me.
It's the adults from different races who can't get along, not the kids. Shouldn't the adults be made to attend special "single-stream" adult-schools instead? Shouldn't the adults be made to attend those National Service Training Camps, starting with the politicians first of course. Isn't it the adults who are instilling the same prejudices into their kids? The truth is, no matter how well kids mix with each other, even if some of their best friends are from a different race, each will take a different path and lead a different life in adulthood. Because Malaysian society is structured as such.
Even in countries with a homogeneous society, they still kill each other because of religion. So, do we prescribe the same solution to them? Get their kids and parents to mix with each other to "unite" them?
In terms of learning, what is the correlation between with the number of streams and the quality of education? Does having a single stream make better students, improve their learning, and expand their knowledge? Does it translate to better schools with better facilities and better teachers?
The problem is with the quality of teachers and educators, the people in government implementing education policies, the people who designs the syllabus, the people in charge of education, from top to bottom. The problems are created by people, and there too lies the solution.
We often hear about comparisons between education systems and syllabus with those from other countries. But we seldom highlight or compare the quality and training of the teachers, educators and administrators.
Focus on getting better trained people in the public education service, keep politics out & religions at home, and the problems will disappear. Simple.
Or perhaps not so simple for some of those who get mental orgasms by the mere thought of abolishing Chinese Schools :)
Spotlight on education: Can single-stream schools fix knowledge, racial gap?
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 12 — Malaysia’s continuing slide down the global education pole has again reignited the decades-old debate to dismantle vernacular schools entirely and enforce a single-stream system.
However, experts at an education forum last night remain split in their opinions that a one-stream school system can repair the growing racial gap they blame for the country’s mediocre assessment in knowledge rankings worldwide.
“There should not be one stream of schooling in Malaysia,” Wan Saiful Wan Jan, chief executive of think-tank Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, told the 30-odd people who turned up for the talk titled “Should there be one stream schooling in Malaysia?”
He said the current education system was a “centralised mess” dogged by illogical policies and politicians who wanted to stamp their mark but did not really consider the effect on the students who would have to go through the changes.
“I believe the schooling system must be decentralised and depoliticised to get more people involved to plan its future,” he said.
The analyst believed that for decentralisation to work, however, policy-makers must first grapple with the idea that individuals have the right to make their own choices.
He also argued that if schools were to be used as a medium to foster unity, then focus should be given on the quality of the education rather than forcing everyone to conform.
“If the schools have enough quality, then it doesn’t matter what syllabus nor language is being used,” Wan Saiful said.
Panellist Zul Fikri too shared the belief that race issues must be kept out of education policies, but disagreed that abolishing vernacular schools was a practical solution to improving the knowledge levels.
“What we are looking at is a predominantly heritage and culture issue and not education,” said the founder and chairman of Teach for the Needs, a non-governmental organisation that provides tuition classes for underprivileged students.
“We have to let go of some of our fear that we hold on to now. Don’t talk about race in education. It is the content that matters and how they (students) are educated,” he said and floated an idea for a hybrid schooling system to stimulate cultural diversity to promote racial unity.
Another panellist, Lim Teck Ghee who heads the Centre for Policy Initiatives, also noted that politicians have attempted to thwart the national education agenda with partisan issues, but said vernacular schools should be seen as protecting minority rights.
He pointed out the proposal to abolish Chinese schools nationwide mooted by a junior Umno politician last ahead of his Malay party’s annual general assembly, purportedly as the vernacular schools were hotbeds for racism and anti-establishment sentiments.
“These schools have become a convenient scapegoat, particularly for the Malay public,” Lim told the forum.
He said critics of vernacular education have also not produced any study as evidence to back their claims that Chinese or Indian schools cause disunity.
Lim said that out of the 356 Chinese schools in the country, 314 have non-Chinese students; he added that in some of them, as much as 70 per cent of the student population were of other races.
“It’s not the racial sentiment that’s involved, but the pedagogy factor. How can you ensure that these (vernacular) schools are on a level playing field with national schools?” he said.
He pointed out the unequal public funding of the different existing school streams, alleging that most of the money was being funnelled into Mara junior colleges to ensure the Bumiputera-exclusive schools had the best teachers and facilities.
“This is where the disparity is, where the government has built up an elitist Malay education system that is sacred from the national education stream,” he said.
The researcher said that at the same time, the federal government appeared to be rolling back in its own initiatives to enhance unity among schoolchildren of the different existing streams and cited as an example, the Pupils Integration Plan for Unity that began in 1986 when Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi helmed the Education Ministry and was revived again in 2005 when the latter was prime minister.
He noted that the budget for the programme that aimed to stimulate racial interaction between Malay Muslim students in homogenous institutions such as religious and national boarding schools, and other ethnicities, saw its budget slashed from Rm 25.4 million in 2007 to RM2.4 million in 2011.
Independent researcher Nor Arlene Tan Khalid concurred with Lim that national schools were “very Malay-centric” but said the indoctrination of a mono-culture plagues vernacular schools too.
She disclosed that she was a product of a Chinese-medium school where students were barred from conversing in any other dialect but Mandarin.
A policy that forced the students to conform to a certain identity was unhealthy as it chips away at the diversity of Malaysia’s rich ethnic culture without necessarily improving the country’s educational standards, she said.
“There should be a single stream that can accommodate everyone,” Nor Arlene said, making a case for single-stream schools but decentralising the system by granting autonomy to the schools.
“We should be addressing other core issues such as why aren’t our students scoring in the Pisa tests,” she said, referring to the Programme for International Student Assesment conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which tests 15-year-olds on their reading, science and math-solving abilities.
Malaysian students scored in the bottom quarter in the last assessment in 2012 the results of which were released in April this year, limping home at 39th place out of 44 countries.
- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/spotlight-on-education-can-single-stream-schools-fix-knowledge-racial-gap#sthash.repSeGMP.dpuf
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