Is Our Education System a “Dismal Failure”?

In a scathing comment on the state of education in Malaysia, the Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE) said poor policy implementation, lack of accountability and the intrusion of politics into education should immediately stop. Its chairman Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim said these are the contributing factors that have led to the failure of the Malaysian education system. She was commenting on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s speech on Jan 22 at the Global Intellectual Discourse titled “The Next 100 Years: Vision 2100 for Malaysia”.

The country’s failure to move forward in many areas, including education, was partly due to the obsession of some quarters who failed to acknowledge existing faults. And Anwar cited Malaysia’s performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) 2022, on which the nation was ranked 51 out of 81 countries, specifically in Science, Mathematics and English. It was an example of how the failure to acknowledge faults in the education system had affected the country’s global ranking.

Source: https://breezway.com.my

Malaysia was also ranked fourth in the 10-member Asean region, with Malaysia’s scores recording the biggest drop compared with Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Noor Azimah expressed disappointment over the fact that the recommendations of education-focused organisations had been ignored, highlighting the disregard for input from education stakeholders. She said the current education system focuses solely on exam-oriented reading, which has led to deterioration in the overall reading culture among students.

For many years, we have been struggling to improve English language proficiency and promote English for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subjects.

Noor Azimah said as PAGE champions improvements in education, including the English language, its call is now resonating across the country.

The decline in Pisa rankings indicates deep-rooted issues that need immediate attention. The allocation of RM58.7 billion for education is the largest in Budget 2024, a 6.3% increase from 2023’s allocation. On GDP basis, we spend 5.33% of GDP while the world average (2022)  was 3.8%. After all that spending, we are left with an education system that is below par! We need a new Education Minister. I will nominate Noor Azimah to put things right.

Reference:

National education system labelled a “dismal failure”, Sivanisvarry Morhan, The Sun, 

26 January 2024