The Education Ministry must not be hasty in scrapping examinations as it will create far-reaching consequences for our human capital development, said Tony Pua (DAP-Petaling Jaya Utara).

NONE Yesterday Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced that UPSR and PMR examinations may be abolished as part of government efforts to restructure the learning system, that was seen as too examination-oriented and failed to provide a holistic education.

Pua, ( above ), the DAP national publicity secretary, explained that it is important to first understand the cause of failure in the education system, which is not necessary a result of having examinations per se.

He pointed out during a press conference in Parliament that two vital points should be examined.

“Firstly, without first changing our teaching systems to encourage creativity, critical thinking and innovation, removing examinations will make little or no difference to the quality of education for our students,” he said.

Pua claimed that if the quality and ability of the teaching staff remain unchanged, then the quality of student output will see little difference.

“Instead, because of the lack of a standardised assessment system, the outcome might actually deteriorate due to the lack of objective measures,” he continued.

Asking the right questions

Secondly, Pua said that the problem of students who focus on memorising and regurgitating answers for examinations lay in the nature of the questions itself.

education examination spm stpm scholarship biasiswa 090609 01 “If the examination questions today are oriented towards memorised answers, then understandably the students will be focused on memorising answers.

“However if the questions are oriented towards challenging a student’s thinking skills, then certainly the students will have little choice but to be more analytical,” he said.

Pua illustrated this by giving examples of a history question at the PMR level.

“If the question is, ‘What year did the Portugese conquer Malacca?’, then in this case, the student had no choice but to memorise the year ‘1511'.”

Pua said that if it were phrased differently, for example, “Why did Malacca lose to the Portugese?”, then a greater degree of analytical thinking is demanded of the student.

“(And further), if the question is, ‘Was it inevitable that Malacca would lose to the Portugese in 1511?’, then a student would have no choice but to evaluate the facts and provide measured answers. Such questions would certainly encourage greater critical thinking for what we want is not memorised facts but weighted opinions,” he said.

He added that the proposal to scrap examinations is not a miracle cure to producing analytically-minded students, and may actually produce a negative and unintended outcome on the average quality of Malaysian students.

Form bi-partisan review committee

However, he claimed that DAP and Pakatan Rakyat are happy to work with the government in a non-political bi-partisan effort to ensure the development of human capital.

education examination spm stpm scholarship biasiswa 090609 02 “We call upon our government to create a high-powered committee of MPs as well as prominent educationist to debate, review and recommend reforms which will take our education system to greater heights” he added.

Meanwhile, the Independent MPs also disagreed with the proposal to scrap examinations.

“The UPSR public examination is the yardstick to measure the scholastic achievement for year six and PMR for year nine. If the examinations to evaluate scholastic achievements are conducted at the level of individual schools only, there will be no national standard,” said Mohsin Fadzli Samsuri (Ind-Bagan Serai).

He added that the education system in Malaysia is subject to the whims and fancies of the education minister.

“The education system changes every time there is a change in the holder of the said portfolio. Therefore, we appeal to the government to formulate a long-term educational system that is consistent and with continuity,” he added.