Saturday, September 27, 2014

leaked exam papers

28.9.2014.

This hoo-haa about leaked exam papers isn't new. Since my secondary school days, and those were a long, long, long time ago, we've heard about it. Fortunately, I was never victim to it.

It's symtomatic of Malaysians' heavy hinge on examination results on education.

The fact that every new Education Minister from Tun Razak to Muhyiddin wants his brand left on the long-suffering Ministry does not help. 

I've lost track of how many reports have been presented on education - "Razak", "Rahman Talib"  so on so forth. 

I subscribe to the sentiment that we  lost the opportunity at a cohesive nation-building through an English schools system that has been abolished. I still have friends of all races from those "English school" years. We  meet, once in a long while, though, and we speak like old brothers despite our different cultures.  We bonded because of scouting and sports and genuinely committed teachers.

You abolish this, then with every change of Education Ministers you change also  schools types, examination types, subjects and methods of teaching types, and have teachers burdened with non-teaching work. And then we wonder what is the matter ?

The shift in UMNO's power-base from the Malay teachers to the Malay "businessmen" ( I put in quotations because that is another story ) has caused havoc to education in this country. It's too late maybe for the Malay political leaders to finally realise that it's in the school where a nation is built. 

But education isn't about exams only. The emphasis on exams means exam paper leakages won't be plugged, until a creative, meaningful education system not entirely reliant on examinations is installed.


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