Improve Our Schools, Not Tinker With Examinations

By Dr. M.Bakri Musa

In about two weeks nearly half a million Malaysian school children will be sitting for their UPSR,the national examination taken at the end of Year Six. Today there is raging debate on abolishing this as well as the PMR(taken at Year Nine) examination. A decision is expected within weeks.There is however,minimal discussion on the timing of these examinations, administered as they are so early in the school year.

This year UPSR will be on September 20th, with PMR two weeks later. From then till the year-end holidays in late November, there will be no effective teaching or learning at these schools. With the examinations out of the way,the entire school-students and staff- will already be in holiday mode. The staff will be makan gaji buta(paid but not working).

Come January when these students begin their classes, they would have already suffered through considerable attrition in their learning skills as the result of three-month hiatus. The first few weeks if not months would be diverted to re-learning lessons of the preceding grade.

The problem only gets worse when they sit for their SPM examination(at Year 11). Although that is held in mid November, the results would not be out till late March. Visit Malaysia at the end and the first half of the year and you will see thousands of these young boys and girls loitering. Query them and the typical answer would be , "Waiting for exam results".

The next public option for those wishing to continue their formal schooling would be either matrikulasi or Sixth Form. Both however would not start till June,

When they were sitting for their UPSR and PMR, these students wasted away only months three months: with SPM they would be fritting away over half a year, a substantial period in a young student's life.

This terrible wastage of time escapes the attention of policymakers. They should be addressing this more pertinent and pressing issue instead of non-productive controversy over abolishing UPSR and PMR.

(To be continued)