Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Of education, school, exam, knowledge and everything else possible

Walk trough any typical town of Malaysia, you can bet any household with children goes to school... Basically almost every country in the world is the same. But Malaysian education is one of the best example of "MALAYSIA BOLEH"

I not trying to prove anything here, I'm just pointing out a few of the MANY flaws in the Malaysian Education system, from the view of a typical student.

I begin the day studying in school... Getting trough the day trying my best to stay awake during classes, coming back with a big pile of homework... bla bla... This should NOT be happening if it were to be a good education life... Education should be interesting, making the student WANT to learn instead of forcing. But too bad... this isn't happening.

The classes are boring to extend that even some teachers become pessimist... I for one DON'T enjoy education... Because it is not enjoyable... Not that I didn't try to.

I mean, I get the impression that I'm just memorising all things just for sake of getting an A.... It's all about Exam... What's so great about this "EXAM"??? Malaysian exam standard isn't even good for International standards.. All the things we learn, or rather, Memorise, doesn't seem practical for the future..

Another point to say, the syllabus are strictly followed to a point where the only concern is the syllabus, not the subject, so many of the slower students can't cope.

We can't learn something without any interest in it, it's like asking a cow to try and hunt. If possible, we should be given a more flexible choice of subject, not merely just by a set of classes, but rather, a list of subject that can be selected 1 by 1. It can be argued that it's not time for such freedom. But if not now, then when? We need to move forward.

The biggest disadvantage of the education system is the class streaming system. By this means that students are arranged to specific classes based on their exam results. So generally, the weaker students will be separated from the better students. By this, a lot of the weaker students will start feel left out, have a low self esteem, and stray into juvenile delinquency in some cases. The teachers attitude also contribute to this point. The teachers in charge of the weaker students should be an experienced teacher in her field, able to guide most of the students trough this times, but now, only a hand full of such teachers exist, and are slowly one by one, retiring. As the stronger students, they will keep on running the never ending rat race of the school world. Exam here plays as an important tool, it can be your friend, it can be your enemy, and by this it is causing a lot of havoc now in Malaysia, the exam factor. Just because of a piece of paper, could cost you a good education, not because you don't deserve it, but just because you are slower than your peers. Not fair right?

The things that need to be clear are the targets of our life, we must always question ourself regularly, why am I studying this? Is this useful for my future? People who study blindly will only lose more, not knowing what they really want, not knowing what potential they have, they only know they have full of papers showing they got As...

What is Education? Education is a system whereby we can learn, and be better people, but are we really creating a better society, or are we causing a major imbalance in our society, only time will tell.

As for me, I admit I have many flaws too, I am slow at picking up new things, having some problem with add. maths, big problems with physics, despises Sejarah, not fluent in Malay, have difficulty coping with Chinese, and worse of all, way too carefree...

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