When quality is absent, meritocracy matters not: educationists
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Prof Khoo Kay Kim's answer was a shocking one. Coming from someone who has committed almost all his life towards greater education for Malaysians, his words when met last Thursday were certainly hard to believe."I don't think that I can teach anymore," said Khoo who quit teaching three years ago.
"Our students these days are not the same as in the past. Their quality is way below par," added the historian whose disappointment was obvious.
Even top scoring students have no idea what they are learning, most of them just memorise instead of understanding the subjects, lamented the professor emeritus at Universiti Malaya's history department.
"So, what is all the debate about meritocracy now?" he pointed out. "It is just a matter of statistics, like how many points one scores... but it does not tell anything."
After almost 40 years in the university, Khoo knows well what he was talking about. To him, there is a larger issue to address, rather than just who and how many students from which ethnic group should qualify to enter government-run public universities.
"The question is, are we producing quality students? If our graduates are not capable of competing at international level or making themselves marketable, let's not talk about meritocracy for now."
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