Intensity vs Versatility of Education

It's been some time since I last write something in the blog. Just a reminder, if you are a government supporter and you can't take criticism, then you better close this page now.

This time regarding the education system in Malaysia, government education in particular. As we all know, the education system in Malaysia tends to side with versatility. The government planned & tried to create students and younger generation that is good in everything, but regrettably most of us end up good in nothing. How ironic, lol.

From primary education to secondary education. We have been exposed to numerous subjects such as languages, sciences, geography, history etc. I admit, for primary and lower secondary, an introduction into these areas are essential. They give us the basic introduction of 'what is X and what is Y'. However, such exposures heavily burdens the students, giving them ample amount of subjects like 10 subjects or maybe more.

The sad thing about Malaysia is that, people tend to evaluate an individual's academic performance with the amount of A's. They have the impression that students with a high amount of A's are smart students, and those who have less are not-as-smart students. Sadly, these naive bunch of people (sorry for the harshness but I found it appropriate) includes parents, schools and colleges, employers and the public in general. They are either unaware or ignorant of the fact that the 'graphs' for government exams are so low that an A doesn't worth an A in truth. For instance, last I heard, you can pass the Add. Math with something like 6 or 9 marks? How much does an A worth with such passing mark I wonder? I'll leave the answer to you.

Also, the thing about examinations is that it's not purely based on thinking and smartness alone. Luck, mood and examiner's mood all affects the results. No doubt, students with straight A's are more hardworking than those with let's say 3 or 4 A's in general. However, hardworking is one thing, smart is another thing. Talents should not be evaluated based on exam results. Furthermore, the examination system in Malaysia is poorly designed. SPM (secondary school final government exam, for non-malaysian readers) for example, is much of a 'memorise and pour out' exam than testing on a person's critical thinking, e.g. History exam. Therefore, as long as you are hardworking and you master the 'exam technique of answering questions', getting an A is not too hard to be honest.

Despite my argument, this impression and general consensus has produced some sort of moral force, which has acted upon the people into getting as many subjects and scoring as many A's as possible. The more A's you have, the higher chance you will have in terms of getting scholarships, securing a seat in local university or a job, which is true, but sad. Meanwhile, interview is an alternative to evaluate a person's performance, but the tension and pressure of an interview will likely affects a person's thinking, but at least it works better than a plain paper written with the amount of A's a person has.

Personally, I think versatility and intensity is a trade-off, else there won't be such a thing called specialisation. Yes, we have 10 subjects or more for our SPM and we can actually brag about it, but consider the depth of our subjects. How much do we actually study in each subject? The textbook is full of unnecessary crap, mostly from the narrator, probably just to fill the length of the content. Try and do a personal note from the local textbook and you can find that at least half of the content are more decorative than educative.

For those who have graduated from secondary school, ask yourself, other than maybe languages and math, is there anything in particular that actually benefits you currently, in your further studies or careers etc. Perhaps History is necessary since we are Malaysians but frankly, the textbook itself is biased to a large extent, and why is Islam involved so much in the textbook but not any other religion is questionable. The thing is, is that fair for non-Muslims?

Other than that, personally I think the government over-emphasise on Sciences. An ideal example is from my former secondary school, whereby there's 6 Science class and 1 Art class. Well, basically the 'smart' students are assigned into Science classes and those who are weak in academic performance will be assigned to the Art classes. Things work in this way in general in Malaysia (Not sure in other states but KL definitely). This created an impression that Science students are smart students and Art students are dumb students, which is very bad, because students tend to choose Science even though they prefer Art because of this impression. Besides, I don't think it's that much of 'Art' anyway, it's more to business after all.

Indeed we need scientists to develop Malaysia, engineers for examples. However, don't we need entrepreneurs, accountants, economists, financial and investment analysts etc. to strengthen the local economy before we plan to develope new technology or 'scientifying' our country? I suppose if the government can give an equal share of emphasis on both Science and Art stream, it will be better for our economy and country in the long run.

My suggestion to our current education issues is that the government should let the students pick which subject combinations they prefer to a certain extent, much like the private or oversea tertiary education system. Narrow down the subject amounts and cut off the crap of the textbook, give it more depth instead. Also, improve the standard of the exam 'graph'.

I apologise for hastily drawing suggestion regarding the issues. Not really in the mood for blogging today lol. I might write in detail of how to improve them if there is demand for it. That's all for today I guess. Enjoy.