Please look at Malaysian education as a whole

DAP National Deputy Chairman and MP for Kepong Dr Tan Seng Giaw calls on the Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to look at the Malaysian education as a whole including the practical aspects.

For years the various education departments have known that those schools in which the headmasters and the teachers are dedicated have better students and better results such as the teaching of Maths and Science in primary Chinese schools as mentioned by the Education Minister.

Dr Tan comments on Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin's statement from Bandung today that the Education Ministry may emulate the model used by Chinese schools for the teaching of Mathematics and Science in national schools.

Chinese schools achieve better results in the two subjects in the recent Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR). It was true in the previous UPSRs.

It is a good thing that the education director general Tan Sri Alimuddin Mohd Dom would review and study the performance of pupils in national and vernacular schools, as well as in urban and rural schools.

Tan Sri Alimuddin and state education directors know that in certain schools including Chinese schools, committed teachers, practical work and discipline mean better students and better results. I believe that there were education directors who tried to improve those schools which were lagging behind.

Looking at work books and the extra time given by teachers to pupils in some schools, we should not be surprised at the performance of these pupils.What the Director-General should also look at is the percentage of dedicated and prefessional teachers among the 386,031 teachers in Malaysia. We have often raised this matter in parliament and shall continue to do so. There are many factors including sports that produce better students.

It is always dufficult to replace examinations. We still need them. They provide rough guidelines. However, the following results may not reflect the whole truth:

A total of 48,171 pupils, or 9.51 per cent of 506,620, who sat the exam scored straight A s. Last year, 46,641 (9.19 per cent) of 507,320 UPSR candidates scored all As.The number of pupils with good results (minimum C) also increased to 63.03 per cent compared with 62.56 per cent last year, while only 0.64 per cent scored all Es compared with 0.66 per cent last year.

Dr Tan Seng Giaw