JUNE 27 — There have been suggestions that we use a school-based system to replace the standardised national examinations like UPSR and PMR.
In countries like Finland, indeed the first stage of education is based on school grading and students do not need to sit for any standardised examination until they finish their upper secondary school.
In some of the international schools in the country, students do not have to sit for any external examination from Form 1 to Form 4, and then sit for Cambridge “O” level at the end of form 5. From Form 1 to Form 5, the assessment of students is school based, and the streaming done in Form 4 based on the assessment of teachers and the scholastic aptitude of the students.
A school-based system will be less stress on students and can be very good but in the Malaysian context, I do not think it is workable at this moment. This is because in Malaysia, everything boils down to ethnicity.
What is there to prevent certain racist headmasters from abusing their powers and give poor assessments to students of another race? What is there to prevent parents bribing certain teachers to give a good assessment of their children so that they get good grades? It is like the driving licence now. How easy to get a pass even with just three hours of driving training.
The school-based assessment can only be applied here when we have done away with two important aspects of our society:
1. When race-based politics is abolished and a fair and equitable system has been adopted with affirmative action only towards the poor and the handicapped,
2. When the corruption culture is wiped out (it may not be totally but at least there must be a drastic reduction of corruption).
Even so, in a school-based assessment system, the grades of a child cannot be determined by one teacher only, but by a group of teachers who have taught that particular student, and there must be a good check and balance system on top of this assessment group.
The reason why students now are so examination orientated is not because of assessment examinations like PMR or UPSR. It is rather the glorification of the all “A”s students, resulting in parents wanting their children to get all “A”s in order to show off to their neighbours or friends. Never mind that the “A”s students may have gotten only six answers right out of 10.
In the culture of glorification, it is not what they know that matters, it is what they can show off in a certificate that becomes the more important objective.
It is really a serious case of kiasu, compounded of course by their love for their kids and not wishing to see their kids losing out to their peers.
In the 60s, this problem was not that acute. Very few of us were chasing “A”s. In those days, the passing marks were high and to get an “A”, you needed really high marks, so only very few got all “A”s, and because of that most students were quite satisfied with getting credits instead of distinctions for their subjects (credit is like the equivalent of today’s B). Those who got credits then in fact are more knowledgeable than some of today’s “A” students.
We need to tighten up our examination marking; raise the marks for getting “A”s, so that only the very top students get all “A”s, and not like the scenario now where almost every Tom, Dick and Harry can come home with 16, 17 “A”s. If there are really so many good students, Malaysia would have surpassed Korea or Taiwan long ago in technical areas.
So while the whole system is being revamped, we should still retain the exam system but the markings and the awards of “A”s must be made TRANSPARENT, so that every parent will know how the marking is done. You cannot skew your passing curve so low that 30 marks is considered a pass, and 60 marks gets you an A.
Those “A”s would have no meaning at all.
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.
