YOURSAY 'The Malaysian education ministers and their blueprints are like the proverbial ‘starting with the tiger's head but ending with the rat's tail'.'

'Envy' over M'sian education reform plan

Het: The fact remains that we have as many education blueprints as we have education ministers. We have heard all the big talk at the launch of each blueprint. But what happens after that?

Ask the parents and they will tell you how they worry about the deteriorating standard of education in Malaysia. At the end of the day, sloganeering can only bring you so far. It is the implementation that counts.

The Malaysian education ministers and their blueprints are like the proverbial "starting with the tiger's head but ending with the rat's tail".

Faz: South Korea's former education minister Byong-Man Ahn is definitely being nice and diplomatic. These foreign consultants are here for the money, and you do not bite the hand that feeds you.

Funny that we Malaysians have not been shown the blueprint yet, but the apple-polishing sessions have already begun.

Still, to me, any blueprint for the good of all Malaysians is welcome. The main question as always in Malaysia is whether Umno-BN has the willpower and determination to carry it through. I doubt it, judging from past experiences.

This is just a public relation exercise for Umno-BN to show its concern on education and the 'eminent' foreigners are just window dressing as there are many Malaysians who are expert in this field.

This is just for our consumption before general election. Call the bluff, folks, and go for ABU (Anything but Umno).

RAW: Such invited experts are usually polite. Rarely do they criticise. They either seek to praise if there is something good to be said about the plan or they just keep quiet or make neutral remarks if there is nothing good.

It's a bit like a friend inviting you to look at his newly renovated home. Even if there is something ugly, would you tell him right to his face in his home?

It is also possible that the plan looks only impressive on paper. One can think of many past plans that were impressive (the Multimedia Super Corridor is one that immediately comes to mind) but which did not come close to the intended mark when implemented.

Abasir: If the consulting minister has never attempted anything like this in his country, what value can he provide to the blueprint? What does it say about bringing in foreign consultants?

Pissed Off: This looks like a poor attempt at impressing the rakyat with big projects supposedly for their benefit.

Once the initial pomp and hoo-hah has gone and all the money made by the ministers and their cronies, the project died a natural death due to lack of enthusiasm and motivation. Whatever was conceived in the beginning just fizzled away.

No need to come up with new plans and projects. Just ensure that all previous policies, plans, projects, etc, are implemented effectively. Malaysia would then be far better off than what it is today.

When it comes to education, each and every one of the current and past education ministers did their part in screwing up the system to a point that the quality of education in Malaysia sucks. However, their children get the best education in private colleges.

Their motto - keep the rakyat stupid so that they can rule forever.

Dingy: In 1996, I was shown Smart School Education blueprint by a lecturer friend, who was a pioneer in the smart school committee.

I then invited him to give a talk on the smart school to my school teachers. The plan required the Examination Syndicate of Malaysia to monitor the progress of individual students.

In my mind I knew it would be a failure, as it was impossible for any education department to monitor the progress of individual students. Also the teachers would not be able to teach students at different levels of academic achievement.

Sure enough, the Smart School project was a total failure. I believe this new education blueprint will face the same fate.

It would use the Internet extensively to implement the education software online. In trial, school-based assessments require a lot of time from the teachers to enter academic results as well non-academic measurements of individual students.

Quality of teachers is another issue. It will fail at implementation stage. Teachers would spend more time on data entry than on teaching in classrooms.

Bersih@428: This government is really going to a great extent to get foreigners to gloss over a blueprint we haven't seen ourselves. We all know how low the quality and capacity of our teaching profession has reached.

So low that there is hardly any interaction between teachers and pupils. The schools are manned by teachers who can't teach.

How then can any blueprint be capable of raising teaching standards? This government has announced as many blueprints as it has had education ministers since independence.

In fact, this current education minister is on the job a few years only and he announced changes to produce world-class education early in his term and later to prove its success, has gone on record to say that education levels here are far better than in UK, US, Europe, Australia, etc.

If so, why then this blueprint?

2LAN: What plans? Wait till you see it. How can the deputy prime minister appreciates a good plan when he is more concerned about playing politics. Besides what qualification has he got to appreciate a good plan when he sees one?

CN Yee: Let's be realistic. We have been producing unemployable graduates for decades. Do you think a grand plan on paper will change the reality overnight?

Maybe we should ask former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad what he thinks. He was fuming mad when Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin made did a U-turn in the teaching of Maths and Science in English.

Many parents were fuming mad as well. In Malaysia, everything looks good in paper but hardly anything gets executed properly.

Ferdtan: Before going to the high sounding education reform, the Education Ministry's first basic mission is to have proper infrastructure that can meaningfully called schools.

We learn of schools in Sabah, Sarawak and even in remote area of Peninsular Malaysia don't have electricity, basic schools amenities like proper chairs, tables and canteens. Some of the schools have broken roofs which leak when hit by rain.

We don't have to go so far to the East Malaysia, we often hear of Indian schools in a state of disrepair. Many rural students attending schools don't have decent meals and have to walk or take boats to school.

In fact, I remember seeing a TV programme once in Sabah that a group of young students have to swim across a river to get to their schools.

Muhyiddin, first get back to basic - give the same chance or opportunity to the poor in the rural areas as we have given to the children of urban areas. To me, that is real and meaningful education reform we should be talking about.

Stella Ling: No need for new education blueprint. Just revert to the system used before Mahathir was the education minister. We had good teachers and students then and Malayan University was highly regarded internationally.

Many of our ministers then sent their children to local schools unlike now when all of them, including the education ministers, send their kids overseas because they all know that the system here is screwed.

Also in those days, many Malaysian men used to go to Korea for dirty weekends because Korean girls were affordable. Where are we now compared to the Koreans?

Anonymous #70881335: Sarcasm has hit a new high. Tell the former South Korean minister to send their students here. And see how many actually come.

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