Review education system, not just exams3

Wednesday, 7 July 2010 | Filed under Human Capital

Two statements in recent days by Malaysia’s top two leaders highlight where and how this administration intends to lead the nation forward.

The first message came from the Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak, who urged local companies to strive to be globally competitive.

The other was from his deputy and Minister of Education, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who reminded Malaysians of the urgent need to produce the right human capital that would drive the economy to the next level of development. “We cannot be content with the old way of doing things,” he emphasised.

Since taking over the helm of the country slightly over a year ago, the Prime Minister has been pushing his vision to improve Malaysia’s global competitiveness.

He has opened up many economic sub-sectors to competition. Under his New Economic Model (NEM), he is striving to promote innovation and creativity, enhance public-private sector cooperation, develop talent and human capital and mould new mindsets, among other transformational measures.

The result, in just one year, has been remarkable.

The renowned IMD business school in Switzerland raised Malaysia’s ranking to 10th position in its 2010 World Competitiveness Report Yearbook, a leap of eight rungs up from the 2009 survey.

Tan Sri Muhyiddin, on his part, is taking his own advice to re-look at “the old way of doing things” by directing a study on abolishing the UPSR and PMR examinations for primary and lower secondary students respectively.

Whether the abolition of the two exams is good or bad in the education of Malaysian youth is still being debated.

What is immediately beneficial is that this unexpected proposal has challenged Malaysians to discuss the merits and demerits of a rigid and outdated education system that focuses almost exclusively on rote learning and passing exams with as many “A’s” as possible.

The bigger picture

Whatever the outcome of the discussions, at least it points to some people in this country being bold enough to think of changing a stagnant, unquestioned practice.

However, I, and I believe many other Malaysians, would very much prefer that any examination of our colonial-era education system covers the entire system rather than just one part of it.

We have to be prepared to accept that change is happening constantly right through the education systems in the world and this change requires a creative response.

And creativity means reevaluating the norm, so that things can be done better; so that better options can be found. It requires knowledge, understanding and capacity to develop new ways of addressing problems and objectives.

It is not enough to simply revamp the programmes being taught in our schools and universities. It is not enough to merely pursue academic excellence and high-flying examination results.

We need to look at the bigger picture.

Education must evolve beyond the basic concept of employment. We need to produce school—leavers and university graduates with skills fundamental to achieving a successful life, and the ability to contribute to the country’s innovative capital.

We need to understand how a country’s capacity for innovation and knowledge creation are fundamentally dependent on education and human development. And why that capacity for innovation has been identified as the single most significant differentiating factor between developed high-income economies, and developing, lower income economies.

Like what the Prime Minister envisaged in his New Economic Model, our education system must address talent development which, ultimately, means creating the building blocks that will enable us to shape our future.

It must enable students to do what they can do best without the artificial constraints of an outdated colonial system. It must allow them to innovate and excel.

This means we must be clear about the kind of future we want to create and then proceed to develop a cohesive and flexible plan that strengthens and further integrates how the government, private and educational sectors function and interact.

Build people first, then economy

In education, there is no room for dogmatic approaches if we want to be outstanding.

There should not be a “one-size-fits-all” response to the provision of education.

But governments, by their very nature, tend to be orthodox in their thinking and reluctant to change.

They find comfort in time-tested practices and rely on strict compliance to keep the status quo.

Breaking the norm is not easy or even to be encouraged, despite good intentions to do their best for their people and country.

Nevertheless, good intentions alone are not good enough.

Malaysia has already invested heavily in ICT infrastructure.

What we need to do next, I feel, is to review, revamp and re-invent the development and delivery of education, allowing for greater flexibility and creativity with an emphasis on innovation.

It is time for a new national education model to be considered.

One that effectively builds first the people — to power the economy.

This reinvention must happen if there is to be transformation so that every young Malaysian is purposefully educated, and has a part to play and a stake in moving this country forward.

This I see as an urgent mission.

Urgent because holding on to a system or a model that has lost much of its relevance in the current environment will only waste human potential deepen hopelessness and stir further dissent.