The bottom 30% deserve the best education too1

Wednesday, 9 November 2011 | Filed under Education

Intelligent debate is healthy for the mind…and for the country.

And the current debate that is raging about the government’s decision to revert to the teaching of Maths and Science to Malay is a case in point.

On a macro level, the point it makes is that we have turned the fork in the road that the public no longer accepts that government always knows best.

On a micro level, it illustrates the point that a new movement of community stakeholders has emerged (not aligned to any political group or civil society organization) that can polarize large segments of the country and that people do not need to physically come together to make their voices heard.

The debate about the quality of education in this country is nothing new—what is new is the convergence of community stakeholders and social media, a potent force if there ever was one!

A gaping education divide

Of course the epicenter of the debate is urban driven, as are most socio-political issues and protests.

Current statistics put some 70% of Malaysians in urban areas, but the biggest impact of how the education debate will play out will be in the bottom 30% of the country that is rural.

Though I hesitate to make sweeping generalizations, I believe we know that whatever the outcome, the urban students will still have it better than their rural counterparts.

Urban schools will still have the best teachers and the best facilities.

We speak of the digital divide but what of the education divide that ill prepares rural children for a wired and globalized world?

Is innovation even in the vocabulary of rural teachers, much less rural children?

Is creativity even understood, much less applied in rural classrooms?

Do rural schools have the digital software and do their teachers have the digital competencies to prepare students for a wired world?

These are our bottom 30% and with an education system that is in critical mode, where is the light at the end of the tunnel for them?

Spiralling towards mediocrity as a nation

The National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC) 2010 report released in December 2010 doesn’t hold back the punches in its assessment of our human capital.

“The quality of the Malaysian workforce is regressing,” it states in no uncertain terms. “Investors complain that potential workers lack analytical and problem solving skills.

“Deficiencies in language proficiency and social networking aptitude hinder progress in the adoption of cutting edge technology and modern teamwork process needed for high-value added activities.”

The report calls for a “radical revamp” of the education system from primary to tertiary.

In this instance, it says, the Government has shown that it does not know best.

“We need a comprehensive reform programme as opposed to a patchwork of disjointed actions. The education system must move beyond the “nation building stage” to providing the tools and skills to compete in the global marketplace.”

And then it makes a dire prediction.

“Without this” it says, we are “spiraling towards mediocrity as a nation.”

That report came out a year ago. We have to ask - has anything really changed since then?

Are those who have the power to make it right even listening?

The World Bank, in a November 2010 report found that many rural schools did not provide adequate education, citing a high turnover and a shortage of teachers in critical subjects.

Rural students, it said, performed significantly worse on tests than their urban peers.

That comes as no surprise.

The surprise is that with all the data over the years, our education policy continues to be coloured by politics and semantics.

These actions do this nation - and our most precious resource for nation building - a great disservice.

The ‘currency’ of ‘creative literacy’

We know that the future will be defined not by geographical size, or military might, or population size.

The future is being defined by creativity and innovation; and technology is moving so fast that no one can accurately predict what the world will look like in five years time.

Yet, we are supposed to prepare our children for it.

And the best gift we can give them is the gift of ‘creative literacy’ - which is the most valuable human currency in the world today.

They are watching us

Our young are watching us - and we are not acting like the wiser elders we are supposed to be.

Why after over half a century, are we still prizing conformity over creativity in the education system?

Why after over half a century, are we teaching our young that hard work and merit are not the measure of equal opportunity?

When will our education system be free of the choke of the racial underbelly that permeates our schools today?

Making education about politics

Malaysia has never been short of plans and blueprints for education; where we have come up short is in making education about politics.

Remember when we used to have one of the best public universities in Asia.

Remember when our students were self-confident, could speak and write high-quality English equal to (and mostly better than) students in native English speaking countries.

The bottom 30% of our nation has suffered the most because they do not have the socio-economic resources and clout that their urban counterparts have in finding alternatives to a broken education system.

We can talk all we want about what it means to reach Vision 2020.

About what things will be like when we become a ‘fully-developed, high-income nation.”

It will ring hollow when the weakest among us are not part of the equation.

And that’s a sorry fact.